The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-07-21
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That beat from Zanzibar.
Spirit Of'Lire, where ere Thy affairs rise,
Thou art Eight Of Guidance to our eyes!
-Sdisette Boat Song.
There is hope for n man who gets pub
licly and ~riotously drunk more often than
he ought to do; but there Is 10 hope for
the man who drinks secretly and alone i'm
his own house-the man h Is never seen
to drink.
This is n rule; so thereimust be an ex-
ception to prove il. Moriarity's case vas
that exception.
He was a civil engineer, and he gov
eminent, very kindly, put him quite by
himself in an ~out-district, with nobody
but natives to talk to and a great deal of
work to do. He did his work well i'm the
four years he was utterly alone; but he
picked up the vice of secret and solitary
drinking, and came up out of the wilder
ness more old and worn and haggard b
the dead-alive life had any right TO make
him. You know the saying that a man
who has been alone in the jungle for
more than a year is never quite sane all
his life after. People credited Moriarity's
q%ueerness Of manner and moody ways to
the solitude, and said it showed how gov-
eminent spoilt the futures of its best men.
Moriarity had built himself the plinth Of a
very good reputation in the b~ridge-dam-
girder line. But he knew, every night OF
the week, that he was taking steps to I'M
dermine that reputation with L. l.. l.. and
christopher" and little nips of liqueurs,
and filth of that kind. He had a sound
constitution and a great brain, or else he
would have broken down and died like n
sick camel in the district, AS better men
have done before him.
Government ordered him TO Samla after
he had come out Of the desert; and he
ven up, meaning to try for a post then
vacant. That season, Mrs. Reiver-per-
haps you will remember her-was i'm the
height OF her power n many men lay
under her yoke. Everything bad that
could be said has already been said about
Mrs. Reiver, i'm another tale. Moriarity
was heavily built and handsome, very
quiet n~ervously anxious to please his
neighbors when he wasn't sum in a
brown study. He started a good deal at
sudden noises, or IL spoken to without
warning; and, when you watched him
drinking his glass of water, you could see
the hand shake a little. But all this was
put down to nervousness, n the quiet,
steady, ''sip-sip-sip, fill and sip-sip-sip.
again." that went on in his swn room
when he was by himself, was never
known. Which was miraculous, seeing
how everything In a mans private life is
public property out here.
ANVIL "as NV INV IL IttF-
ver's set, because they were not his sort,
but INTO the power of Mrs. Reiver, n he
fell down i'm front of her and made a god
dess Of her.. This was due TO his coming
fresh out of the jungle to a big town. He
could not scale things properly or see who
was what.
Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and hard
he said she was stately and dignified. Be
cause she had no brains and could not
talk very cleverly, he sam b was reserv-
ed and shy. Mrs. Reiver shy! Because
she was unworthy of honor or reverence
from any one, he reverenced her from n
distance and lowered her with all the vir-
tues i'm the Bible and most of those in
Shakespeare.
This big, dark. distracted man, who
was So nervous when "A pony cantered be-
hind him, used to moon in the train of
Mrs. Reiver, blushing with pleasure when
she threw IA word OF W. his a His
admiration was strictly %platonic; even
other women saw M admitted this. He
did not move out in Simla, SO he heard
nothing against his idol: which was salts
factory. Mrs. Reiver took no special no
tice of him, beyond seeing that he was
added to her list of admirers, and going
for n walk with him now and then, just TO
show that he was her property, claimable
as such. Moriarty must have done most
of the talking, for Mrs. Reiver couldn't
talk much to a man Of his stamps; and the
y shS AAto III tot ~ tyttti
able. What Moriarty believed i'm, as he
had good reason to, was Mrs. Reiver's in
fiuence over him, and, i'm that belief, set
himself seriously To try to do away with
the vice that only he himself knew of.
His experience while he vas fighting
with il must nave been peculiar, but he
never described them. Sometimes he
would hold off from everything except
water for a week. Then, on a rainy night,
when no one had asked him out TO dinner,
and there was a big fire i'm his room. and
everything comfortable, he would sit down
and make a big night of il by adding little
nip to little nip, planning big schemes OF
reformation meanwhile, until he threw
himself on his bed hopelessly drunk. He
suffered next morning.
One night the big crash came. He was
troubled in his own mind over h $ at
tempts TO make himself ''worthy of the
friendship" of Mrs. Reiver. The past ten
days had been very bad ones, and the emo
of il all was that he received the arrears
of two and three-quarter years Of slipping
in one attack of delirium tremens Of the
subdued kind; beginning with sui
and starts and bysteria, and ending
with downright raving. As he
sat i'm a chair in IRON of the fire, oi
walked up and down the room picking a
handkerchief to pieces, you heard whal
poor Moriarty really thought of Mrs
Reiver, for he raved about her and hi.
own fall for the most part though he raw
elled some p. w. ID. accounts into the
same skein of thought. He talked and
talked, and talked in a low dry whisper &c
himself, and there was no stopping him
He seemed TO know that there was some
thing wrong, and twice tried to pull him
self together and confer nationally will
the doctor; but his mind ran out of con
troll at once. and he fell back To n whisper
and the story Of his troubles. IL is terri
BILE 20 hear a big man babbling like
child of all that n man usually locks NJ
and puts away in the deep of his heart
Moriarty read out his very soul for th'
between 10:30 that night and 2:E next
..,rntpn