I was not master because I had the plum tree. I had the plum tree because I was master.
The legislature attended to such of the demands of my combine and such of the demands of the public as I thought it expedient to grant, and then adjourned. Woodruff asked a three months' leave. I did not hear from or of him until midsummer, when he sent me a cablegram from London. He was in a hospital there, out of money and out of health. I cabled him a thousand dollars and asked him to come home as soon as he could. It was my first personal experience with that far from uncommon American type, the periodic drunkard. I had to cable him money three times before he started.
When he came to me at Washington, in December, he looked just as before,--calm, robust, cool, cynical, and dressed in the very extreme of the extreme fashion. I received him as if nothing had happened. It was not until the current of mutual liking was again flowing freely between us that I said: "Doc, may I impose on your friendship to the extent of an intrusion into your private affairs?"
He started, and gave me a quick look, his color mounting. "Yes," he said after a moment.
"When I heard from you," I went on, "I made some inquiries. I owe you no apology. You had given me a shock,--one of the severest of my life. But they told me that you never let--that--that peculiarity of yours interfere with business."
His head was hanging. "I always go away," he said. "Nobody that knows me ever sees me when--at that time."
I laid my hand on his arm. "Doc, why do you do--that sort of thing?"
The scar came up into his face to put agony into the reckless despair that looked from his eyes. For an instant I stood on the threshold of _his_ Chamber of Remorse and Vain Regret,--and well I knew where I was. "Why not?" he asked bitterly. "There's always a--sort of horror--inside me. And it grows until I can't bear it. And then--I drown it--why shouldn't I?"
"That's very stupid for a man of your brains," said I. "There's nothing--nothing in the world, except death--that can not be wiped out or set right. Play the game, Doc. Play it with me for five years. Play it for all there is in it. Then--go back, if you want to."
He thought a long time, and I did not try to hurry him. At length he said, in his old off-hand manner: "Well, I'll go you, Senator; I'll not touch a drop."