slid noiselessly before them. Euston Station a few short months ago, myself tightly wedged in a crowded third-class carriage, the train to Liverpool slowly moving out, and my father's tall figure standing on the platform--this picture hid the Hub and Bingham and John Kay. The serious blue eyes, fixed on mine with love and tenderness, could not conceal the deep anxiety they betrayed for my future. Behind them, though actually at the Manor House, Crayford, fixed on a page of the Bible, or perhaps closed in earnest prayer, the eyes of my mother rose up too.... The train moved faster, the upright figure and the grave, sad face, though lit by a momentary smile of encouragement, were hidden slowly by the edge of the carriage window. I was too shy to wave my hand, and far too sensitive of what the carriage-full of men would think if I moved to the window and spoke, or worse, gave the good-bye kiss I burned to give. So the straight line of that implacable wooden sash slid across both face and figure, cutting our stare cruelly in the middle.
It was the last time I saw my father; a year later he was dead; and ten years were to pass before I saw my mother again. Before this--to look ahead for a second--some enterprising Toronto friend, with evangelical tact, wrote to my father ... "your son is keeping a tavern," and my father, calling my brother into his study where he laid all problems before his God with prayer, told him in a broken voice and with tears in his eyes: "He is lost; his soul is lost. Algie has gone to--Hell!"...
My vision faded. My broad-shouldered friend and his little rat-faced companion stood with their elbows on the bar. I saw six small glasses and a big dark bottle. Three of the former were filled to the brim with neat rye whisky, the other three, "the chasers" as they were called, held soda-water.
"Drink hearty," rasped Bingham's grating voice, as he tossed down his liquor at a gulp, Kay doing the same, then swallowing the soda-water.
I moved to the swing-doors. I had never touched
spirits, and loathed the mere smell of them. I cannot
