Mr. P. G., the acme of British propriety, inhabiting a house, a
mansion, on the breezy heights of north London, was on that occasion
decidedly drunk. "Indulging in a jag," he would probably have called it.
He tottered into a place where I happened to be sitting, having lost his
friends, he declared; and soon began pouring into my ear, after the
confidential manner of a drunkard, a flood of low talk, which if I
attempted to set it down here, would only result in my being treated to
the same humiliating process as the excellent M. M. with his "choicest
paragraphs." It was highly instructive--the contrast between that
impeccable personality which he displays at home and his present state.
I wish his wife and two little girls could have caught a few shreds of
what he said--just a few shreds; they would have seen a new light on
dear daddy.
In vino veritas. Ever avid of experimentum in some corpore vili and
determined to reach the bed-rock of his gross mentality, I plied him
vigorously with drink, and was rewarded. It was rich sport, unmasking
this Philistine and thanking God, meanwhile, that I was not like unto
him. We are all lost sheep; and none the worse for that. Yet whoso is
liable, however drunk, to make an exhibition of himself after the
peculiar fashion of Mr. P. G., should realize that there is something
fundamentally wrong with his character and take drastic measures of
reform--measures which would include, among others, a total abstention
from alcohol.
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