And Charles checking back his scruples took the glass and drained it, to the bottom.
There is a fable, that a certain king once permitted the devil to kiss his shoulder, and out of those shoulders sprang[10] two serpents that in the fury of their hunger aimed at his head and tried to get at his brain.

He tried to extricate himself from their terrible power.

He tore at them with his fingers and found that it was his own flesh that he was lacerating.

Dormant but not dead was the appetite for strong drink in Charles Romaine, and that one glass awakened the serpent coiled up in his flesh.

He went out from his father's house with a newly awakened appetite clamoring and raging for strong drink.