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Now it chanced there lived in the same boarding-house a
fellow-clerk of his, an honest fellow, with what is called a
weakness for drink - though it might, in this case, have been
called a strength, for the victim had been drunk for weeks
together without the briefest intermission. To this
unfortunate John intrusted a letter with an inclosure of
bonds, addressed to the bank manager. Even as he did so he
thought he perceived a certain haziness of eye and speech in
his trustee; but he was too hopeful to be stayed, silenced
the voice of warning in his bosom, and with one and the same
gesture committed the money to the clerk, and himself into
the hands of destiny.
I dwell, even at the risk of tedium, on John's minutest
errors, his case being so perplexing to the moralist; but we
have done with them now, the roll is closed, the reader has
the worst of our poor hero, and I leave him to judge for
himself whether he or John has been the less deserving.
Henceforth we have to follow the spectacle of a man who was a
mere whip-top for calamity; on whose unmerited misadventures
not even the humourist can look without pity, and not even
the philosopher without alarm.
That same night the clerk entered upon a bout of drunkenness
so consistent as to surprise even his intimate acquaintance.
He was speedily ejected from the boarding-house; deposited
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