tree
because I was master.

* * * * *

The legislature attended to such of the demands of my combine and such
of the demands of the public as I thought it expedient to grant, and
then adjourned. Woodruff asked a three months' leave. I did not hear
from or of him until midsummer, when he sent me a cablegram from
London. He was in a hospital there, out of money and out of health. I
cabled him a thousand dollars and asked him to come home as soon as he
could. It was my first personal experience with that far from uncommon
American type, the periodic drunkard. I had to cable him money three
times before he started.

When he came to me at Washington, in December, he looked just as
before,--calm, robust, cool, cynical, and dressed in the very extreme of
the extreme fashion. I received him as if nothing had happened. It was
not until the current of mutual liking was again flowing freely between
us that I said: "Doc, may I impose on your friendship to the extent of
an intrusion into your private affairs?"

He started, and gave me a quick look, his color mounting. "Yes," he said
after a moment.

"When I heard from you," I went on, "I made some inquiries. I owe you no
apology. You had given me a shock,--one of the severest of my life. But
they told me that you never let--that--that peculiarity of yours
interfere with business."

His head was hanging. "I always go away," he said. "Nobody that knows me
ever sees me when--at that time."

I laid my hand on his arm. "Doc, why do you do--that sort of thing?"

The scar came up into his face to put agony into the reckless despair
that looked from his eyes. For an instant I stood on the threshold of
_his_ Chamber of Remorse and Vain Regret,--and well I knew where I was.
"Why not?" he asked bitterly. "There's always a--sort of horror--inside
me. And it grows until I can't bear it. And then--I drown it--why
shouldn't I?"

"That's very stupid for a man of your brains," said I. "There's
nothing--nothing in the world, except death--that can not be wiped out
or set right. Play the game, Doc. Play it with me for five years. Play
it for all there is in it. Then--go back, if you want to."

He thought a long time, and I did not try to hurry him. At length he
said, in his old off-hand manner: "Well, I'll go you, Senator; I'll not
touch a drop."

And he didn't. Whenever I thought I saw signs of the savage internal
battle against the weakness, I gave him