The lad had no vice in him, but there was a hard-drinking
set in the neighbourhood at that time, and Danbury got drawn in among
them; and, being an amiable fellow who liked to do what his friends were
doing, he very soon took to drinking a great deal more than was good for
him. As a rule, a man who takes his exercise may drink as much as he
likes in the evening, and do himself no very great harm, if he will
leave it alone during the day. Danbury had too many friends for that,
however, and it really looked as if the poor chap was going to the bad,
when a very curious thing happened which pulled him up with such a
sudden jerk that he never put his hand upon the neck of a whisky bottle
again.
"He had a peculiarity which I have noticed in a good many other men,
that though he was always playing tricks with his own health, he was
none the less very anxious about it, and was extremely fidgety if ever
he had any trivial symptom. Being a tough, open-air fellow, who was
always as hard as a nail, it was seldom that there was anything amiss
with him; but at last the drink began to tell, and he woke one morning
with his hands shaking and all his nerves tingling like over-stretched
fiddle-strings. He had been dining at some very wet house the night
before, and the wine had, perhaps, been more plentiful than choice; at
any rate, there he was, with a tongue like a bath towel and a head that
ticked like an eight-day clock.
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