Besides, he's mine. He shall
owe nothing to any one but to me. I'll find him and cure him myself."
"But you'll have a hard time finding him. He disappears for weeks at
a time. Even Tom Lacey might not be able to help you."
"I'll find him."
"You may have to haunt the most abominable places."
"You seem to forget that I have haunted a good many abominable
places. And if they are good enough for him they are good enough for
me."
"New York has the worst set of roughs in the world. Our hoodlums are
lambs beside them."
"I have no fear of anything but not finding him in time."
"But that is not the worst. You should not see him in that state.
You might find him literally in the gutter. He might be a sight you
never could forget. No matter what you made of him you never could
obliterate such a hideous memory. And he might say things to you that
your outraged pride would never forgive."
"I can forget anything I choose. Nor could anything he said, nor
anything he may have become, horrify me. Don't you think I have
pictured all that? I think of him every moment and I am not a coward.
I have imagined things that may be worse than the reality."
"Hardly. But there is another danger. You might kidnap him and get
him sobered up, only to lose him again.
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