The Somerset reporter., 1895-12-19
u ERROR.

than he ought to do, but there Is no
hope for the man who drinks secretly
and alone in his own honse--the man
who is never seen to drink. This is
rule; so there must be an exception to
prove it. Moriarty's case was that ex-
ception.
he was a civil engineer, and the gov
ernment very kindly put him quite by
himself III an out district, with nobody
but natives to talk to and great deal
of work ~ do He did his work we'll in
the four years he was utterly alone, but
he picked up the vice of secret and soil
tary drinking, and came up out of the
wilderness more old and worn and bag
gard than the dead alive life had any
right to make him. You know the say
ing that man who has been alone IN
the jungle for more than year is never
quite sane all his life after. People
credited Moriarty' queerness of manner
and moody ways to the solitude, and
said that it showed how government
spoiled the futures Of its best men.
Moriarty had built himself the plinth of
a very good reputation in the bridge
dam girder line. But he knew, every
night of the week, that he was taking
steps to undermine that reputation with
L. L. L. and "Christopher' and little
nips of hqueurs and filth of that kind.
He had a sound constitution and great
brain, or else he would have broken
down and died like sick camel III the
district as better men have done before
him.
Government ordered him to Simla
after he had come out Of the desert, and
he went up meaning to try for a post
then vacant. That season, Mrs. Reiyer
perhaps you will remember her-was
in the height of her power, and many
men lay under her yokd. Everything
bad that could be said has already been
said about Mrs. Reiver i'll another tale.
Moriarty was heavily built and hand
some, very quiet and nervously anxious
to please his neighboss, when he wasn't
sunk in brown study. He started a
good deal at sudden noises or if spoken
to without warning; and when you
watched him drinking his glass of wa
ter at dinner, you could see the hand
shake "a little But all this was put
down to nervousness, and the quiet,
steady "sip-sip-sip, fill and sip-sip-sip
again that went on in his own room
when he was by himself was never
known, which was miraculous, seeing
how everything III "A mans private life
is public property ont here.
Moriarty was drawn, not into Mrs.
Reiyer' s set, because they We're not his
sort, but into the power of Mrs. Reiyer,
and he fell down in front of her and
made goddess of her. This was due to
his coming fresh out the jungle to a big
town. He could not scale things proper
ly or see who was what.
Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and
hard. he said she was stately and digni-
fed. Because she had no brains, and
could not talk cleverly, he said she was
reserved and shy. Mrs Reiver shy
Because she was unworthy of honor or
reverence from any one, he reverenced
her from distance and lowered her
with all the virtues i'll the Bible and
most of those in Shakespeare.
This big, dark, distracted man who
was SO nervous when pony cantered
behind him used to moon in the train
of Mrs Reiyer, blushing with pleasure
when she threw word or two his way.
His admiration was strictly platonic-
even other women saw and admitted
this He did not move out in Simla. so
he heard nothing against his idol, which
was satisfactory. Mrs. Reiver took no
special notice of him, beyond seeing that
he was added to her list of admirers,
and going for a 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 stamp, and the little she said
could not have been profitable. What
Moriarty believed in, as he had good
reason to, was Mrs. Reiver's influence
over him. and in that belief, set him
self seriously to try to do away with the
vice that only he himself knew of
His experiences while he was fighting
with it must have been peculiar, but he
never described them. Sometimes he
would hold off from everything except
water for week Then, on rainy
night, when no one had asked him ont
to dinner, and there was big fire in
his room, and everything comfortable,
he would sit down and make big night
of it 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 his
attempts to make himself worthy of
the friendship of Mrs. Reiver The
past ten days had been very bad ones,
and the end of it all was that he re-
ceiyed the arrears of 23+ years of sip
ping in one attack of delirium tremens
of the subdued kind; beginning with
suicidal depression, going on to fits and
starts and hysteria, and ending with
downright raving. AS he sat in a chair
in front of the fire, or walked up and
down the room picking handkerchief
to pieces, you heard what poor Morlarty
really thought of Mrs. Reiver, for he
raved about her and his own fall for the
most part, though he raveled some p.
W. ID. accounts into the same skein of
thought He talked, and talked and
talked in low, dry whisper to himself,
and there was no stopping him. He
seemed to know that there was some
thing wrong, and twice tried to pull