I guzzled.

I swilled.

I ran the liquor down and joyed as the maggots mounted in my brain.
And Clam came in, Nelson's partner before me, handsome as ever, but more reckless, half insane, burning himself out with whisky.

He had just had a quarrel with his partner on the sloop Gazelle, and knives had been drawn, and blows struck, and he was bent on maddening the fever of the memory with more whisky.

And while we downed it, we remembered Nelson and that he had stretched out his great shoulders for the last long sleep in this very town of Benicia; and we wept over the memory of him, and remembered only the good things of him, and sent out the flask to be filled and drank again.
They wanted me to stay over, but through the open door I could see the brave wind on the water, and my ears were filled with the roar of it.
And while I forgot that I had plunged into the books nineteen hours a day for three solid months, Charley Le Grant shifted my outfit into a big Columbia River salmon boat.