Crying for the Light, Volume 1

‘What a donkey I am! ' was the exclamation of a tall, well-made young man, rather shabbily dressed-four or five years after the events recorded in the preceding chapter-as he stood clinging to a lamppost in Fleet Street very late one bright summer night. ‘I have been to Fairlop Fair, with instructions to do a gushing article, and I'm blessed if I can recollect anything about it, nor where my notes are. I was to be back by ten, and it is now midnight. Thank Heaven,' continued the speaker, as he groped into his coat pocket, ‘my notes are there. I thought I'd left them behind in that bar-room where I was waiting, where everyone was so tight and so talkative. Steady, boy-steady, boy! ' continued the speaker, reluctantly depriving himself of the support of the lamp-post. ‘We shall be all right, and in time, after all.'

Thus summoning his energies, the individual in question appeared to revive, and moved on with a gait ofttimes deviating from the straight line, but not so much as to call for special interference on the part of the police, and with that intense expression which always accompanies a certain state of alcoholic inspiration.