ouse. Some of them drive their men there by
nagging, but more of them lead a man on to drink by sheer indulgence.
They encourage him to enjoy himself without thinking of the day when
enjoyment will be impossible, and when they and their children will
reach the lowermost rung of the ladder of shame and penury. The Wanderer
went merrily on his way, but his vice was steadily gaining on him, and
his nerve was going. He took a long engagement for an Australian tour,
and carried on very loosely all the while; but Letty saw no change.
Women never do until the very worst has happened. When Devine came to
England he was eagerly looked after, and he should have fared well. For
a time he had engagements and money in plenty, but a subtle change was
taking place in him, and managers and audiences saw it, though they
could not say precisely where the deterioration had taken place.

There is a certain sporting set of theatrical men who are very dangerous
companions. Their daily work is exciting, and when they want change
they often gamble, because that is the only form of excitement which is
keener than the stir and tumult of the theatre. When Devine won three
hundred pounds on one Derby he was a lost man. He pitted his wits
against the bookmakers'; he took to loafing about with those flash,
cunning fellows who appear to spend their mornings in bars and their
evenings in music-halls; he lost his ambition, and he began to lead a
double life. In the end he took to presenting himself at the theatre in
various stages of drunkenness, and on one unlucky night he practically
settled his own fate by falling down on the stage after he had blundered
over his lines a dozen times. The public saw little of him after that,
for he had not the power of Kean, or Cooke, or Brooke.

They all go the same way when they slip as Devine did. You can meet them
on the roads, in common lodging-houses, in the workhouse. The residuum
is constantly recruited from the "comfortable" classes, and, out of
thousands of cases, I never knew half-a-dozen in which the cause was not
drink. I blame nobody. A drunkard is always selfish--the most selfish of
created beings--and his flashes of generosity are symptoms of disease.
If he lives to be cured of his vice his selfishness disappears, and he
is another man; but so long as he is mastered by the craving, all things
on earth are blotted out for him saving his own miserable personality.
So far does the disease of egotism go,