"None for me. I need no farther stimulant than the mere sense of
mouvement. I take fire, like a wheel, by my own progress."
"Pretty much the same case with myself. But I have been in the
habit of drinking here, of late, and too deeply. To-night, however,
as I said before, ends all these habits. If there is honey in the
carcass, and strength from the sleep, there is wisdom from the folly,
and virtue from the vice. There is a moral as well as a physical
recoil, that most certainly follows the overcharge; and really,
speaking according to my sincere conviction I never felt myself
to be a better man, than just at this moment when I am about to do
that which my own sense of morality fails altogether to justify.
I do not know that I make you understand my feelings; I scarcely
understand them myself; but of this sort they are, and I am really
persuaded that I never felt in a better disposition to be a good
man and a working man than just at the close of a career which has
been equally profligate and idle."
I think my companion can be understood. There seems, in fact very
little mystery in his moral progress. I understood him, but did
not answer. I was not anxious to keep up the ball of conversation
which he had begun with a spirit so mixed up of contradictions--so
earnest yet so playful. A deep sense of shame unquestionably lurked
beneath his levity; and yet I make no question that he felt in
truth, and for the first time, that degree of mental hardihood of
which he boasted.
He advanced through the refreshment-room, to a door which led to an
apartment in an adjoining tenement. It was closed, but unfastened.
The sound of voices, an occasional buzz, or a slight murmur, came
to our ears from within; that of rattling dice and rolling balls
was more regular and more intelligible. Kingsley laid his hand
upon the latch, and looked round to me. His eye was kindled with
a playful sort of malicious light. A smile of pleasant bitterness
was on his lips. He said to me in a whisper:-"Stake your money slowly. A Mexican is the lowest stake. Keep to that,
and lose as little as possible. You will soon see me sufficiently
busy, and I will endeavor to urge my labors forward, so as to make
your purgatory a short one. I shall only wait till I feel myself
cheated in the game, to begin that which I came for. See that I
have fair play in THAT, MON AMI, and I care very little about the
other."
He lifted the latch as he concluded, and I followed him into the
apartment.