hasn't landed you yet. There is absolutely no nutriment in being dead. That gets you nothing save a few obituary notices you will never see. There is even less in being sick and sidling around in everybody's way. It's as sure as sunset, if you keep on at your present gait, that Mr. John Barleycorn will land you just as he has landed a lot of other people you know and knew. There are two methods of procedure open to you. One is to keep it up and continue having the fun you think you are having and take what is inevitably coming to you. The other is to quit it while the quitting is good and live a few more years—that may not be so rosy, but probably will have compensations."

I viewed it from every angle I could think of. I knew what sort of a job I had laid out to tackle if I quit. I weighed the whole thing in my mind in the light of my acquaintances, my experiences, my position, my mode of life, my business. I had been through it many times. I had often gone on the waterwagon for periods varying in length from three days to three months. I wasn't venturing into any uncharted territory. I knew every signpost, every crossroad, every foot of the ground. I knew the difficulties—knew them by heart. I wasn't deluding myself with any assertions of superior will-power or superior courage—or superior anything. I knew I had a fixed daily habit of drinking, and that if I quit drinking I should have to reorganize the entire works.

CHAPTER II

HOW I QUIT

This took some time. I didn't dash into it. I had done that before, and had dashed out again just as impetuously. I revolved the matter in my mind for some weeks. Then I decided to quit. Then I did quit. Thereby hangs this tale.

I went to a dinner one night that was a good dinner. It was a dinner that had every appurtenance that a good dinner should have, including the best things to drink that could be obtained, and lashings of them. I proceeded at that dinner just as I had proceeded at scores of similar dinners in my time—hundreds of them, I guess—and took a drink every time anybody else did. I was a seasoned drinker. I knew how to do it. I went home that night pleasantly jingled, but no more. I slept well, ate a good breakfast and went down to business. On the way down I decided that this was the day to make the plunge. Having arrived at that decision, I went out about three o'clock that afternoon, drank a Scotch highball—a big, man's-sized one—as a doch-an-doris, and quit. That was almost a year ago. I haven't taken a drink since. It is not my present intention ever to take another drink; but I am not tying myself down by any vows. It is not my present intention, I say; and I let it go at that.

No man can be blamed for trying to fool other people about himself—that is the way most of us get past; but what can be said for a man who tries to fool himself? Every man knows exactly how bogus he is and should admit it—to himself only. The man who, knowing his bogusness, refuses to admit it to himself—no matter what his attitude may be to the outside world—simply stores up trouble for himself, and discomfort and much else. There are many phases of personal understanding of oneself that need not be put in the newspapers or proclaimed publicly. Still, for a man to gold-brick himself is a profitless undertaking, but prevalent notwithstanding.

When it comes to fooling oneself by oneself, the grandest performers are the boys who have a habit—no matter what kind of a habit—a habit! It may be smoking cigarettes, or walking pigeontoed, or talking through the nose, or drinking—or anything else.