on and marvelled at the infant phenomenon
that downed wine with the sang-froid of an automaton. It is not in the
spirit of braggadocio that I dare to assert they had never seen anything
like it.

The time came to go. The tipsy antics of the lads had led a majority of
the soberer-minded lassies to compel a departure. I found myself, at the
door, beside my little maiden. She had not had my experience, so she was
sober. She was fascinated by the titubations of the lads who strove to
walk beside their girls, and began to mimic them. I thought this a great
game, and I, too, began to stagger tipsily. But she had no wine to stir
up, while my movements quickly set the fumes rising to my head. Even at
the start, I was more realistic than she. In several minutes I was
astonishing myself. I saw one lad, after reeling half a dozen steps,
pause at the side of the road, gravely peer into the ditch, and gravely,
and after apparent deep thought, fall into it. To me this was
excruciatingly funny. I staggered to the edge of the ditch, fully
intending to stop on the edge. I came to myself, in the ditch, in
process of being hauled out by several anxious-faced girls.

I didn't care to play at being drunk any more. There was no more fun in
me. My eyes were beginning to swim, and with wide-open mouth I panted
for air. A girl led me by the hand on either side, but my legs were
leaden. The alcohol I had drunk was striking my heart and brain like a
club. Had I been a weakling of a child, I am confident that it would
have killed me. As it was, I know I was nearer death than any of the
scared girls dreamed. I could hear them bickering among themselves as to
whose fault it was; some were weeping--for themselves, for me, and for
the disgraceful way their lads had behaved. But I was not interested. I
was suffocating, and I wanted air. To move was agony. It made me pant
harder. Yet those girls persisted in making me walk, and it was four
miles home. Four miles! I remember my swimming eyes saw a small bridge
across the road an infinite distance away. In fact, it was not a hundred
feet distant. When I reached it, I sank down and lay on my back panting.
The girls tried to lift me, but I was helpless and suffocating. Their
cries of alarm brought Larry, a drunken youth of seventeen, who proceeded
to resuscitate me by jumping on my chest. Dimly I remember this, and the
squalling of the girls as they struggled with him and dragg