The last person who ever suspects that a wife drinks is always the
husband; the last person who ever suspects that any given man is bitten
with drink is that man himself. So stealthily, so softly does the evil
wind itself around a man's being, that he very often goes on fancying
himself a rather admirable and temperate customer--until the crash
comes. It is all so easy, that the deluded dupe never thinks that
anything is far wrong until he finds that his friends are somehow
beginning to fight shy of him. No one will tell him what ails him, and I
may say that such a course would be quite useless, for the person warned
would surely fly into a passion, declare himself insulted, and probably
perform some mad trick while his nerves were on edge. Well, there comes
a time when the doomed man is disinclined for exertion, and he knows
that something is wrong. He has become sly almost without knowing it,
and, although he is pining for some stimulus, he pretends to go without,
and tries by the flimsiest of devices, to deceive those around him. Now
that is a funny symptom; the master vice, the vice that is the pillar of
the revenue, always, without any exception known to me, turns a man into
a sneak, and it generally turns him into a liar as well.
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