I drink too much of the same kind of whisky at the same time
every night. I even drink about the same amount too much.
I go to the same number of public-houses. I meet the same damned
women with mauve faces. I hear the same number of dirty stories--
generally the same dirty stories. You may assure my friends,
Inglewood, that you see before you a person whom civilization
has thoroughly tamed."

Arthur Inglewood was staring with feelings that made him nearly
fall off the roof, for indeed the Irishman's face, always sinister,
was now almost demoniacal.

"Christ confound it!" cried out Moon, suddenly clutching the empty
claret bottle, "this is about the thinnest and filthiest wine
I ever uncorked, and it's the only drink I have really enjoyed
for nine years. I was never wild until just ten minutes ago."
And he sent the bottle whizzing, a wheel of glass, far away beyond
the garden into the road, where, in the profound evening silence,
they could even hear it break and part upon the stones.

"Moon," said Arthur Inglewood, rather huskily, "you mustn't be
so bitter about it. Everyone has to take the world as he finds it;
of course one often finds it a bit dull--"

"That fellow doesn't," said Michael decisively; "I mean that
fellow Smith. I have a fancy there's some method in his madness.
It looks as if he could turn into a sort of wonderland any minute by taking
one step out of the plain road. Who would have thought of that trapdoor?
Who would have thought that this cursed colonial claret could taste quite
nice among the chimney-pots? Perhaps that is the real key of fairyland.