Part 15 (2/2)
”None,” said Mitchell, promptly ”It wouldn't be a Gratitude Discovery Syndicate Peoplewoirls to be used as decoys for the purpose of hocussing and robbing bushht coht want to make a KCMG, or a God ofme I reckon a philanthropist or reformer is lucky if he escapes with a whole skin in the end, let alone his character-- But there!-- Talking of gratitude: it's the fear of ingratitude that keeps thousands froood It's just as paltry and selfish and cowardly as any other fear that curses the world--it's ratherthought a coward, or being considered eccentric, or conceited, or affected, or too good, or too bad, for instance The ratitude has no gratitude owing to hirateful to the world for being let live He broods over the world's ingratitude until he gets to be a cynic He sees the world like the outside of a , as it were, with the blind drawn and the dead, coldon it, and he passes on with a sour face; whereas, if he took the trouble to step inside he'd ht, and syratitude Soo aets a lot of surprises at the aainst in the world--and in places where he'd never have expected to find it But--ah, well! I'ot all about the Lost Souls' Hotel,” I said
”No, I haven't,” said Mitchell; ”I'd fix that up all right As soon as I'd got things going smoothly under a man I could trust, I'd tie up every penny I had for the benefit of the concern; get soain I' in one place--(I' better in another place) I'et walking up and down in hts and disturb the folk; and, besides, I'd feel lost and light-shouldered without the swag”
”So you'd put all your o on the track with--for, who knows, I ed and hard up and old, soht's rest at the Lost Souls' Hotel
But I wouldn't let on that I was old Mitchell, the ht be too officious, and I hate fuss
But it's time to take the track, Harry”
There came a cool breeze with sunset; we stood up stiffly, shouldered our swags and tucker-bags, and pushed on, for we had to make the next water before we camped We were out of tobacco, so we borrowed some from one of the bullock-drivers
THE BOOZERS' HOME
”A dipsomaniac,” said Mitchell, ”needs sylorious thing, taking it all round and looking at it any way you will: a little of it ood world after all, and there's rooh of it makes him sure of it: and an overdose of sympathy makes a man _feel_ weak and asha--and buck up)
”Now, I'oes on the spree on pay night and sweats the drink out of hiuzzles for the love of it; but a man with brains, who drinks to drown his intellect or his enerous, gentle s as often as not The best and cleverest and whitest men in the world seem to take to drink mostly It's an awful pity Perhaps it's because they're straight and the world's crooked and they can see things too plain And I suppose in the bush the loneliness and the thoughts of the girl-world they left behind help to sink 'em
”Now a drunkard seldons of the ruin and ht of it sets hiain before he's had tiain, the noblest wife in the worldway to ith a drunken husband--nearly everything she does is calculated to irritate his a bottle home froo back to the pub any et hold of the bottle and plant it, or smash it before his eyes, and that maddens him in the state he is in then
”No A dipsomaniac needs to be taken away froot so bad that the way he acted at ho he went into an inebriate home of his own accord--to a place where his friends had been trying to get him for a year past For the first day or two he was nearly dead with remorse and sha to do to him next--and he only wanted them to kill him quick and be done with it
He reckons he felt as bad as if he was in jail But there were ten other patients there, and one or torse than he was, and that comforted him a lot They compared notes and sympathized and helped each other They discovered that all their wives were noble women He struck one or two surprises too--one of the patients was a doctor who'd attended hiot very chu for Parlia a rest down the coast Yes, my old mate felt very bad for the first day or two; it was all Yes, Nurse, and Thank you, Nurse, and Yes, Doctor, and No, Doctor, and Thank you, Doctor But, inside a week, he was calling the doctor 'Ol'
Pill-Box' behind his back, andlove to one of the nurses
”But he said it was pitiful o It shook the patients up a lot, but I reckon it did 'eood There ell-bred old ladydaughters--and the expressions of sympathy and faith and hope in those woh in itself to make a man swear off drink for ever Ah, God--what a world it is!
”Reminds me how I once ith the wife of another old mate of mine to see him He was in a lunatic asylum It was about the worst hour I ever had in my life, and I've had some bad ones The way she tried to coax hiht she could do it when all the doctors had failed But I'll tell you about him some other time
”The old mate said that the principal part of the treatold or soht have been water and sugar for all he knew, and he thought it was You see, when patients got better they were allowed out, two by two, on their honour--one to watch the other--and it worked
But it was necessary to have an extra hold on them; so they were told that if they were a minute late for `treatood would be undone This was dinged into their ears all the tiion--to hold the people My old mate said that, as far as the medical treatment was concerned, he could do all that was necessary himself But it was the sympathy that counted, especially the syot hold of a new patient and talked to hi he was the most miserable wretch in this world And it cothens him and makes him happier to meet another man who's worse off or sicker, or has been worse swindled than he has been That's huhts from a nurse and eat for her when he wouldn't do it for his oife--not even though she had been a trained nurse herself And if a patient took a bad turn in the night at the Boozers'
Hoot up to hunt the snakes out of his roohed at, or held down; no, they'd help him shoo the snakes out and coot better, one of the new patients reckoned that he licked St Pathrick atsnakes
And when he came out he didn't feel a bit ashamed of his experience
The institution didn't profess to cure anyone of drink, only to mend up shattered nerves and build up wrecked constitutions; give theone And they set ht When he went in his life see sober, he couldn't start the day without a drink or do any business without it He couldn't live for more than two hours without a drink; but when he came out he didn't feel as if he wanted it He reckoned that those six weeks in the institution were the happiest he'd ever spent in his life, and he wished the tier; he says he'd never enius, and humour and human nature under one roof before And he said it was nice and novel to be looked after and watched and physicked and bossed by a pretty nurse in uniform--but I don't suppose he told his wife that And when he came out he never took the trouble to hide the fact that he'd been in If any of his friends had a drunkard in the faet him into it But when he came out he firmly believed that if he took one drink he'd be a lost man He made a mania of that One curious effect was that, for some time after he left the institution, he'd so to account for it--so like he used to feel when he had half a dozen whiskies in him; then suddenly he'd feel depressed and sort of hopeless--with nothing to account for that either--just as if he was suffering a recovery But those ether He didn't flee tehts with his oldbut soft stuff--he was always careful to sallons of ginger beer, ot very fond of sweets, too--he'd never liked the and his mates amused him at first; but he found he had to leave the, and, after a while, he dropped theether They seemed such fools when they were drunk (they'd never seeot full, they'd get suspicious of his as they could That remindschuot married or died When two mates meet and one is drunk and the other sober there is only one of two things for theether--either the drunken et sober or the sober mate drunk And that reether all their lives, say they always had their regular sprees together and went through the saether, and suffered their recoveries and sobered up together, and each could stand about the saot drunker than the other Each, when he's boozing, reckons his mate the cleverest man and the hardest case in the world--second to himself But one day it happens, by a most extraordinary co sober, usted man in this world He never would have dreamed that his old mate could make such a fool and such a public spectacle of hiust intensifies all the ti with hi over hiive Ji as soon as ever he's able to stand steady on his feet”
”I suppose your old boozing mate's as very happy when he reformed,” I said to Mitchell
”Well, no,” said Mitchell, rubbing his head rather ruefully ”I suppose it was an exceptional case But I knew her well, and the fact is that she got ed hi days And she'd never been afraid of him Perhaps it was this way: She loved andsca man, and an honest and respected fellonsman, she was disappointed in hiirl Or maybe he was only cos Perhaps he'd killed the love in her before he reformed--and reformed too late I wonder how a man feels when he finds out for the first tier? ButAh, well! If a woman caused all our trouble, my God! women have suffered for it since--and they suffer likebullocks Anyway it goes, if I'm the last man in the world, and the last woman is the worst, and there's only room for one more in Heaven, I'll step down at once and take my chances in Blazes”