She married another man.
"She was a mighty nice girl," he said, quietly. "Her people did not like
my drinking so much. I passed her not long ago on the street.
She did not know me." He glanced down at himself quietly. "She looks older
than she did." He said that he had had a place for some time, did not
drink a drop for nearly a year, and then got with some of the old fellows,
and they persuaded him to take a little. "I cannot touch it. I have either
got to drink or let it alone -- one thing or the other," he said.
"But I am all right now," he declared triumphantly, a little of the old fire
lighting up in his face. "I never expect to touch a drop again."
He spoke so firmly that I was persuaded to make him a little loan,
taking his due-bill for it, which he always insisted on giving.
That evening I saw him being dragged along by three policemen,
and he was cursing like a demon.
In the course of time he got so low that he spent much more than half his time
in jail. He became a perfect vagabond, and with his clothes ragged and dirty
might be seen reeling about or standing around the street corners
near disreputable bars, waiting for a chance drink, or sitting asleep
in doorways of untenanted buildings. His companions would be one or two
chronic drunkards like himself, with red noses, bloated faces, dry hair,
and filthy clothes.
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