vagabonds, and I joined them. I had longer spells ashore, between
fooling with salmon fishing and making raids up and down bay and
rivers as a deputy fish patrolman, and I drank more and learned
more about drinking. I held my own with any one, drink for drink;
and often drank more than my share to show the strength of my
manhood. When, on a morning, my unconscious carcass was
disentangled from the nets on the drying-frames, whither I had
stupidly, blindly crawled the night before; and when the water-
front talked it over with many a giggle and laugh and another
drink, I was proud indeed. It was an exploit.

And when I never drew a sober breath, on one stretch, for three
solid weeks, I was certain I had reached the top. Surely, in that
direction, one could go no farther. It was time for me to move
on. For always, drunk or sober, at the back of my consciousness
something whispered that this carousing and bay-adventuring was
not all of life. This whisper was my good fortune. I happened to
be so made that I could hear it calling, always calling, out and
away over the world. It was not canniness on my part. It was
curiosity, desire to know, an unrest and a seeking for things
wonderful that I seemed somehow to have glimpsed or guessed. What
was this life for, I demanded, if this were all? No; there was
something more, away and beyond. (And, in relation to my much
later development as a drinker, this whisper, this promise of the
things at the back of life, must be noted, for it was destined to
play a dire part in my more recent wrestlings with John
Barleycorn.)

But what gave immediacy to my decision to move on was a trick John
Barleycorn played me--a monstrous, incredible trick that showed