In his particular district he was a power; in Dublin he soon showed the weaker side of his nature.

He had a bad habit of making foes where he could easily have made friends.

In his personal habits he was sober, but erratic.
Dyck had not his father's abstention from the luxuries of life.

He drank, he gamed, he went where temptation was, and fell into it.

He steadily diminished his powers of resistance to self-indulgence until one day, at a tavern, he met a man who made a great impression upon him.
This man was brilliant, ebullient, full of humour, character and life, knowing apparently all the lower world of Dublin, and moving with an assured step.