himself stubbornly resistant to the action of the commonplace unreality which wanted to absorb him. But now he had to do something.

He was by nature temperate. Being sensitive and emotional, his nausea prevented him from drinking too much.

But, in futile anger, with the greatest of determination and apparent good humour, he began to drink in order to get drunk.

“Damn it,” he said to himself, “you must have it one road or another — you can't hitch your horse to the shadow of a gate-post — if you've got legs you've got to rise off your backside some time or other.”

So he rose and went down to Ilkeston, rather awkwardly took his place among a gang of young bloods, stood drinks to the