wine half-heartedly. The expression in his eyes changed. They
grew stern and imperious as he shoved the tumbler of wine closer.

What could I do? I have faced real death since in my life, but
never have I known the fear of death as I knew it then. I put the
glass to my lips, and Peter's eyes relented. I knew he would not
kill me just then. That was a relief. But the wine was not. It
was cheap, new wine, bitter and sour, made of the leavings and
scrapings of the vineyards and the vats, and it tasted far worse
than beer. There is only one way to take medicine, and that is to
take it. And that is the way I took that wine. I threw my head
back and gulped it down. I had to gulp again and hold the poison
down, for poison it was to my child's tissues and membranes.

Looking back now, I can realise that Peter was astounded. He
half-filled a second tumbler and shoved it across the table.
Frozen with fear, in despair at the fate which had befallen me, I
gulped the second glass down like the first. This was too much
for Peter. He must share the infant prodigy he had discovered.
He called Dominick, a young moustached Italian, to see the sight.
This time it was a full tumbler that was given me. One will do
anything to live. I gripped myself, mastered the qualms that rose
in my throat, and downed the stuff.

Dominick had never seen an infant of such heroic calibre. Twice
again he refilled the tumbler, each time to the brim, and watched
it disappear down my throat. By this time my exploits were
attracting attention. Middle-aged Italian labourers, old-country
peasants who did not talk English, and who could not dance with
the Irish girls, surrounded me. They were swarthy and wild-