However, I befriended him on this occasion, and recommended them to let him be for a while, intimating that, with a little patience on our parts, he would soon come round again.

But, to be sure, it was rather provoking; for, though he refused to drink like an honest Christian, it was well known to me that he kept a private bottle of laudanum about him, which he was continually soaking at--or rather, holding off and on with, abstaining one day and exceeding the next--just like the spirits.
'One night, however, during one of our orgies--one of our high festivals, I mean--he glided in, like the ghost in "Macbeth," and seated himself, as usual, a little back from the table, in the chair we always placed for "the spectre," whether it chose to fill it or not.

I saw by his face that he was suffering from the effects of an overdose of his insidious comforter; but nobody spoke to him, and he spoke to nobody.

A few sidelong glances, and a whispered observation, that "the ghost was come," was all the notice he drew by his appearance, and we went on with our merry carousals as before, till he startled us all by suddenly drawing in his chair, and leaning forward with his elbows on the table, and exclaiming with portentous solemnity,--"Well! it puzzles me what you can find to be so merry about.

What you see in life I don't know--I see only the blackness of darkness, and a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation!" 'All the company simultaneously pushed up their glasses to him, and I set them before him in a semicircle, and, tenderly patting him on the back, bid him drink, and he would soon see as bright a prospect as any of us; but he pushed them back, muttering,-- '"Take them away! I won't taste it, I tell you.