Granted my prodigious brain-fag, nevertheless, had I never drunk in the past, the thought would never have entered my mind to get drunk now.

Beginning with physical intolerance for alcohol, for years drinking only for the sake of comradeship and because alcohol was everywhere on the adventure-path, I had now reached the stage where my brain cried out, not merely for a drink, but for a drunk.

And had I not been so long used to alcohol, my brain would not have so cried out.

I should have sailed on past Bull Head, and in the smoking white of Suisun Bay, and in the wine of wind that filled my sail and poured through me, I should have forgotten my weary brain and rested and refreshed it.
So I sailed in to shore, made all fast, and hurried up among the arks.
Charley Le Grant fell on my neck.

His wife, Lizzie, folded me to her capacious breast.