it on me? I can do things other men can't. I can stop drinking this
minute, and it will mean so little to me that I won't know I've stopped."

"Then stop," said Haldane.

"Why?" demanded Aintree. "I like it. Why should I stop anything
I like? Because a lot of old women are gossiping? Because old men
who can't drink green mint without dancing turkey-trots think I'm
going to the devil because I can drink whiskey? I'm not afraid of
whiskey," he laughed tolerantly. "It amuses me, that's all it does
to me; it amuses me." He pulled back the coat of his pajamas and
showed his giant chest and shoulder. With his fist he struck his
bare flesh and it glowed instantly a healthy, splendid pink.

"See that!" commanded Aintree. "If there's a man on the isthmus in
any better physical shape than I am, I'll--" He interrupted himself
to begin again eagerly. "I'll make you a sporting proposition,"
he announced "I'll fight any man on the isthmus ten rounds--
no matter who he is, a wop laborer, shovel man, Barbadian
nigger, marine, anybody--and if he can knock me out I'll stop
drinking. You see," he explained patiently, "I'm no mollycoddle
or jelly-fish. I can afford a headache. And besides, it's my own
head. If I don't give anybody else a headache, I don't see that it's
anybody else's damned business."

"But you do," retorted Haldane steadily. "You're giving your own
men worse than a headache, you're setting them a rotten example,
you're giving the Thirty-third a bad name-"

Aintree vaulted off his cot and shook his fist at his friend.