At the time when this man was living with me I had on hand as fine a selection of dipsomaniacs as could be wished. One by one in the years of my work I had picked them up, and from different police-court cells they had gathered round me. They were mostly educated men who had considerable abilities, and held positions of trust, and they kept me alive. Some of the employers of these men looked upon me as a ‘keeper,’ for no sooner was one of them absent from his duty than I received a wire to that effect. Not unfrequently I had to effect a capture and bring one to my house for treatment. They were a strange lot, and their outbreaks occurred at varying intervals.
There was one who would go for six months and sometimes more, well conducted, scrupulously clean, and well dressed, an ideal picture of a well-to-do, benevolent, elderly man. I have also known him go for six weeks unwashed, and during that time never remove his clothes, change his linen, or take off his boots. He went down into the mud at longer intervals than the others, but when in it he stayed there and rolled much longer, and went lower down. At no stage of his drinking bout did this man become jolly, lively, or in any sense companionable. He wanted no one, he wanted nothing but drink. Quiet, sullen, and determined, he set about his debauch in a business-like way. He had been with his firm for many years, and was a valuable servant who did not mind work. His employers thought much of him, and were willing to overlook his outbreaks provided they were kept within reasonable limits, and that he never appeared at the office with the slightest sign of a debauch, or of recovering from a debauch, upon him. He had a marvellous constitution, and would drink for six weeks at a time, eating little or no food, and would take bottles of spirits to bed with him. If during his outbreak he took off his boots, he would wander from public-house to public-house, winter or summer, wet or dry, without any. If he started his debauch wearing a great ulster-overcoat, no matter how the weather changed or how warm it became, the overcoat he continued to wear. Often he would lose his silk hat, and many a warm day I have discovered him without hat or boots, but wearing this great-coat. He had beautiful silver hair and beard, of which he was proud, and with which he took no end of pains when sober; no matter how long his debauch lasted, his hair would go uncombed, his beard untrimmed, and his face unwashed.