'I have been as nearly as possible a happy man all to-day,' he
said, when his pipe was well lit. 'Partly the sunshine, I
suppose. There's no saying if the mood will last, but if it does
all is well with me. I regret nothing and wish for nothing.'
'A morbid state of mind,' was Biffen's opinion.
'No doubt of that, but I am content to be indebted to morbidness.
One must have a rest from misery somehow. Another kind of man
would have taken to drinking; that has tempted me now and then, I
assure you. But I couldn't afford it. Did you ever feel tempted
to drink merely for the sake of forgetting trouble?'
'Often enough. I have done it. I have deliberately spent a
certain proportion of the money that ought to have gone for food
in the cheapest kind of strong liquor.'
'Ha! that's interesting. But it never got the force of a habit
you had to break?'
'No. Partly, I dare say, because I had the warning of poor Sykes
before my eyes.'
'You never see that poor fellow?'
'Never. He must be dead, I think. He would die either in the
hospital or the workhouse.
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