Next, I opened a cupboard in the wainscoting and got a bottle of whisky and some tumblers and water.

I always like to do these things for myself: it is irritating to me to have somebody continually at my elbow, as though I were an eighteen-month-old baby.

All this while Curtis and Good had been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had nothing to say that could do me any good, and content to give me the comfort of their presence and unspoken sympathy; for it was only their second visit since the funeral.

And it is, by the way, from the _presence_ of others that we really derive support in our dark hours of grief, and not from their talk, which often only serves to irritate us.

Before a bad storm the game always herd together, but they cease their calling.
They sat and smoked and drank whisky and water, and I stood by the fire also smoking and looking at them.
At last I spoke.