tide
setting up against them from San Pablo Bay. A stiff breeze had sprung
up, and the crisp little waves were persistently lapping into my mouth,
and I was beginning to swallow salt water. With my swimmer's knowledge,
I knew the end was near. And then the boat came--a Greek fisherman
running in for Vallejo; and again I had been saved from John Barleycorn
by my constitution and physical vigour.

And, in passing, let me note that this maniacal trick John Barleycorn
played me is nothing uncommon. An absolute statistic of the per centage
of suicides due to John Barleycorn would be appalling. In my case,
healthy, normal, young, full of the joy of life, the suggestion to kill
myself was unusual; but it must be taken into account that it came on the
heels of a long carouse, when my nerves and brain were fearfully
poisoned, and that the dramatic, romantic side of my imagination,
drink-maddened to lunacy, was delighted with the suggestion. And yet,
the older, more morbid drinkers, more jaded with life and more
disillusioned, who kill themselves, do so usually after a long debauch,
when their nerves and brains are thoroughly poison-soaked.

CHAPTER XIII

So I left Benicia, where John Barleycorn had nearly got me, and ranged
wider afield in pursuit of the whisper from the back of life to come and
find. And wherever I ranged, the way lay along alcohol-drenched roads.
Men still congregated in saloons. They were the poor-man's clubs, and
they were the only clubs to which I had access. I could get acquainted
in saloons. I could go into a saloon and talk with any man. In the
strange towns and cities I wandered through, the only place for me to go
was the saloon. I was no longer a stranger in any town the moment I had
entered a saloon.

And right here let me break in with experiences no later than last year.
I harnessed four horses to a light trap, took Charmian along, and drove
for three months and a half over the wildest mountain parts of California
and Oregon. Each morning I did my regular day's work of writing fiction.
That completed, I drove on through the middle of the day and the
afternoon to the next stop. But the irregularity of occurrence of
stopping-places, coupled with widely varying road conditions, made it
necessary to plan, the day before, each day's drive and my work. I must
know when I was to start driving in order to start writing in time to
finish my day's output. Thus, on occasion, when t