Part 28 (2/2)

Causes that work steadily will sooner or later reach their legitimate results. The opium inertia grew inevitably upon Mr. Jocelyn. He disappointed the expectations of his employers to that degree that they felt that something was wrong, and his appearance and manner often puzzled them not a little even though with all the cunning which the habit engenders he sought to hide his weakness.

One day, late in November, an unexpected incident brought matters to a crisis. An experienced medical acquaintance, while making a call upon the firm, caught sight of Mr. Jocelyn, and his practiced eye detected the trouble at once.

”That man is an opium-eater,” he said in a low tone, and his explanation of the effects of the drug was a diagnosis of Mr.

Jocelyn's symptoms and appearance. The firm's sympathy for a man seemingly in poor health was transformed into disgust and antipathy, since there is less popular toleration of this weakness than of drinking habits. The very obscurity in which the vice is involved makes it seem all the more unnatural and repulsive, and it must be admitted that the fullest knowledge tends only to increase this horror and repugnance, even though pity is awakened for the wretched victim.

But Mr. Jocelyn's employers had little knowledge of the vice, and they were not in the least inclined to pity. They felt that they had been imposed upon, and that too at a time when all business men were very restless under useless expenditure. It was the man's fault and not misfortune that he had failed so signally in securing trade from the South, and, while they had paid him but a small salary, his ill-directed and wavering efforts had involved them in considerable expense. Asking the physician to remain, they summoned Mr. Jocelyn to the private office, and directly charged him with the excessive and habitual use of opium.

The poor man was at first greatly confused, and trembled as if in an ague fit, for his nerve power was already so shattered that he had little self-control in an emergency. This, of course, was confirmation of guilt in their eyes.

”Gentlemen, you do me a great wrong,” he managed to say, and hastily left the office. Having secreted himself from observation he s.n.a.t.c.hed out his hypodermic syringe, and within six minutes felt himself equal to any crisis. Boldly returning to the office he denied the charge in the most explicit terms, and with some show of lofty indignation. The physician who was still present watched him closely, and noticed that the cuff on his left hand was somewhat crumpled, as if it had been recently pushed back. Without a word he seized Mr. Jocelyn's arm and pulled back his coat and s.h.i.+rt sleeve, revealing a bright red puncture just made, and many others of a remoter date.

”There is no use in lying about such matters to me,” said the physician. ”How much morphia did you inject into your arm since you left us?”

”I am a victim of neuralgia,” Mr. Jocelyn began, without any hesitation, ”and the cruel and unreasonable charge here made against me brought on an acute paroxysm, and therefore I--”

”Stop that nonsense,” interrupted the doctor, roughly. ”Don't you know that lying, when lying is of no use, is one of the characteristic traits of an opium-eater? I am a physician, and have seen too many cases to be deceived a moment. You have all the symptoms of a confirmed morphia consumer, and if you ever wish to break your chains you had better tell doctors the truth and put yourself under the charge of one in whom you have confidence.”

”Well, curse you!” said Mr. Jocelyn savagely, ”it was through one of your d.a.m.nable fraternity that I acquired what you are pleased to call my chains, and now you come croaking to my employers, poisoning their minds against me.”

”Oh, as to poisoning,” remarked the physician sarcastically, ”I'll wager a thousand dollars that you have absorbed enough morphia within the last twenty-four hours to kill every one in this office.

At the rate you are going on, as far as I can judge from appearances, you will soon poison yourself out of existence. No physician ever advised the destroying vice you are practicing, and no physician would take offence at your words any more than at the half-demented ravings of a fever patient. You are in a very critical condition, sir, and unless you can wake up to the truth and put forth more will-power than most men possess you will soon go to the bad.”

”I sincerely hope you will take this experienced physician's advice,” said the senior member of the firm very coldly. ”At any rate we can no longer permit you to jeopardize our interests by your folly and weakness. The cas.h.i.+er will settle with you, and our relations end here and now.”

”You will bitterly repent of this injustice,” Mr. Jocelyn replied haughtily. ”You are discharging a man of unusual business capacity--one whose acquaintance with the South is wellnigh universal, and whose combinations were on the eve of securing enormous returns.”

”We will forego all these advantages. Good-morning, sir. Did you ever see such effrontery?” he continued, after Mr. Jocelyn had departed with a lofty and contemptuous air.

”It's not effrontery--it's opium,” said the physician sadly. ”You should see the abject misery of the poor wretch after the effects of the drug have subsided.”

”I have no wish to see him again under any aspect, and heartily thank you for unmasking him. We must look at once into our affairs, and see how much mischief he has done. If he wants the aid and respect of decent men, let him give up his vile practice.”

”That's easier said than done,” the physician replied. ”Very few ever give it up who have gone as far as this man.”

CHAPTER XXVII

A SLAVE

The physician was right. A more abject and pitiable spectacle than Mr. Jocelyn could scarcely have been found among the miserable unfortunates of a city noted for its extremes in varied condition.

Even in his false excitement he was dimly aware that he was facing a dreadful emergency, and following an instinctive desire for solitude so characteristic of those in his condition, he took a room in an obscure hotel and gave himself up to thoughts that grew more and more painful as the unnatural dreams inspired by opium shaped themselves gradually into accord with the actualities of his life.

For a month or two past he had been swept almost unresistingly down the darkening and deepening current of his sin. Whenever he made some feeble, vacillating effort to reduce his allowance of the drug, he became so wretched, irritable, and unnatural in manner that his family were full of perplexed wonder and solicitude. To hide his weakness from his wife was his supreme desire; and yet, if he stopped--were this possible--the whole wretched truth would be revealed. Each day he had been tormented with the feeling that something must be done, and yet nothing had been done. He had only sunk deeper and deeper, as with the resistless force of gravitation.

His vague hope, his baseless dream that something would occur which would make reform easier or the future clearer, had now been dissipated utterly, and every moment with more terrible distinctness revealed to him the truth that he had lost his manhood. The vice was already stamped on his face and manner, so that an experienced eye could detect it at, once; soon all would see the degrading brand. He, who had once been the soul of honor and truth, had lied that day again and again, and the thought pierced him like a sword.

And now, after his useless falsehoods, what should he do? He was no longer unacquainted with his condition--few opium victims are, at his advanced stage of the habit--and he knew well how long and terrible would be the ordeal of a radical cure, even if he had the will-power to attempt it. He had, of late, taken pains to inform himself of the experience of others who had pa.s.sed down the same dark, slippery path, and when he tried to diminish instead of increasing his doses of morphia, he had received fearful warnings of the awful chasm that intervened between himself and safety.

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