beaten into helplessness. So passed one doleful hour. I mentioned
breakfast, and Bob shuddered, while Coney rushed from the room. What a
pleasant thing is a jovial night!

"Let's see if we can manage some champagne," said Darbishire, and the
"merry" three were soon mournfully gazing on a costly magnum. Sip by sip
we contrived to drink a glass each; then the false thirst woke, the
nausea departed, and we were started again for the day.

I persisted in taking violent exercise, but Darbishire seemed to have
lost all his muscular aptitudes, and although I implored him to exert
himself, he sank into a lethargy that was only varied by mad fits,
during which he performed the freaks of a lunatic. After the sixth day's
drinking I proposed to go away. Bob looked queerly at me, and said in a
whisper, "Don't you try it on! See that!" and he showed me a little
Derringer. I laughed; but I was not really amused. You always notice
that, when a man is about to go wrong, he thinks of killing those whom
he likes best. That night Bob's hands flew asunder with a jerk while we
were playing cards; the cards flew about; then he flung a decanter
violently into the fireplace, and sat down trembling and glaring. I
sprang to his side, and found that the sweat was running down his neck.
I pulled off his shoes--his socks were drenched! I said, "I thought
you'd get them, old fellow. Now, have some beef-tea, and I'll send right
away for a sleeping draught." Bob trembled still more.

"No beef-tea. I've had nothing these three days, as you know. It would
kill me to swallow." Then he said, in a horrible whisper, "The brute's
coming down the chimney again. There's a paw! Now his head! Now's a
chance! Yah! you pink devil, that's got you! Three days you've been
coming, and now you're cheeky. Yeo, ho! That's done him." Then he flung