And the foregoing was my attitude of mind for years.Occasionally I got well jingled,but such occasions were rare.It interfered with my work,and I permitted nothing to interfere with my work.
I remember,when spending several months in the East End of London,during which time I wrote a book and adventured much amongst the worst of the slum classes,that I got drunk several times and was mightily wroth with myself because it interfered with my writing.Yet these very times were because I was out on the adventure-path where John Barleycorn is always to be found.
Then,too,with the certitude of long training and unholy intimacy,there were occasions when I engaged in drinking bouts with men.Of course,this was on the adventure-path in various parts of the world,and it was a matter of pride.It is a queer man-pride that leads one to drink with men in order to show as strong a head as they.But this queer man-pride is no theory.It is a fact.
For instance,a wild band of young revolutionists invited me as the guest of honour to a beer bust.It is the only technical beer bust I ever attended.I did not know the true inwardness of the affair when I accepted.I imagined that the talk would be wild and high,that some of them might drink more than they ought,and that I would drink discreetly.But it seemed these beer busts were a diversion of these high-spirited young fellows whereby they whiled away the tedium of existence by making fools of their betters.As I learned afterward,they had got their previous guest of honour,a brilliant young radical,unskilled in drinking,quite pipped.
When I found myself with them,and the situation dawned on me,up rose my queer man-pride.I'd show them,the young rascals.I'd show them who was husky and chesty,who had the vitality and the constitution,the stomach and the head,who could make most of a swine of himself and show it least.These unlicked cubs who thought they could out-drink ME!
You see,it was an endurance test,and no man likes to give another best.Faugh!it was steam beer.I had learned more expensive brews.Not for years had I drunk steam beer;but when Ihad,I had drunk with men,and I guessed I could show these youngsters some ability in beer-guzzling.And the drinking began,and I had to drink with the best of them.Some of them might lag,but the guest of honour was not permitted to lag.
And all my austere nights of midnight oil,all the books I had read,all the wisdom I had gathered,went glimmering before the ape and tiger in me that crawled up from the abysm of my heredity,atavistic,competitive and brutal,lustful with strength and desire to outswine the swine.
And when the session broke up I was still on my feet,and Iwalked,erect,unswaying--which was more than can be said of some of my hosts.I recall one of them in indignant tears on the street corner,weeping as he pointed out my sober condition.
Little he dreamed the iron clutch,born of old training,with which I held to my consciousness in my swimming brain,kept control of my muscles and my qualms,kept my voice unbroken and easy and my thoughts consecutive and logical.Yes,and mixed up with it all I was privily a-grin.They hadn't made a fool of me in that drinking bout.And I was proud of myself for the achievement.Darn it,I am still proud,so strangely is man compounded.
But I didn't write my thousand words next morning.I was sick,poisoned.It was a day of wretchedness.In the afternoon I had to give a public speech.I gave it,and I am confident it was as bad as I felt.Some of my hosts were there in the front rows to mark any signs on me of the night before.I don't know what signs they marked,but I marked signs on them and took consolation in the knowledge that they were just as sick as I.
Never again,I swore.And I have never been inveigled into another beer bust.For that matter,that was my last drinking bout of any sort.Oh,I have drunk ever since,but with more wisdom,more discretion,and never in a competitive spirit.It is thus that the seasoned drinker grows seasoned.
To show that at this period in my life drinking was wholly a matter of companionship,I remember crossing the Atlantic in the old Teutonic.It chanced,at the start,that I chummed with an English cable operator and a younger member of a Spanish shipping firm.Now the only thing they drank was "horse's neck"--a long,soft,cool drink with an apple peel or an orange peel floating in it.And for that whole voyage I drank horse's,necks with my two companions.On the other hand,had they drunk whisky,I should have drunk whisky with them.From this it must not be concluded that I was merely weak.I didn't care.I had no morality in the matter.I was strong with youth,and unafraid,and alcohol was an utterly negligible question so far as I was concerned.