Thus entreated to stop, he had hardly any alternative but to do so.
"It wasn't because I'm ill that I sent for you, or rather let her ladyship send for you.

Lord bless you, Thorne; do you think I don't know what it is that makes me like this?
When I see that poor wretch, Winterbones, killing himself with gin, do you think I don't know what's coming to myself as well as him?
"Why do you take it then?
Why do you do it?
Your life is not like his.

Oh, Scatcherd! Scatcherd!" and the doctor prepared to pour out the flood of his eloquence in beseeching this singular man to abstain from his well-known poison.
"Is that all you know of human nature, doctor?
Abstain.

Can you abstain from breathing, and live like a fish does under water ?" "But Nature has not ordered you to drink, Scatcherd." "Habit is second nature, man; and a stronger nature than the first.
And why should I not drink?
What else has the world given me for all that I have done for it?
What other resource have I?
What other gratification ?" "Oh, my God! Have you not unbounded wealth?
Can you not do anything you wish?
be anything you choose ?" "No," and the sick man shrieked with an energy that made him audible all through the house.

"I can do nothing that I would choose to do; be nothing that I would wish to be! What can I do?
What can I be?
What gratification can I have except the brandy bottle?
If I go among gentlemen, can I talk to them?
If they have anything to say about a railway, they will ask me a question: if they speak to me beyond that, I must be dumb.