About once a month, sometimes oftener, he wanted a playday; we always knew that he would come home from it drunk, and that we should have to put him away in some sequestered place and give him a day in which to recover.
For two or three days afterwards Jim would be the meekest, saddest, most shamefaced of human beings.

At table he would scarcely look up; and there is not the least doubt that his grief and shame were genuine.

Yet as surely as the months passed the same feverish restlessness would again show itself in him.
We came to recognize Jim's symptoms only too well, and knew, when we saw them, that he would soon have to have another playday.

In fact, if the old Squire refused to let him off on such occasions, Jim would get more and more restless and two or three nights afterwards would steal away surreptitiously.
"Jim's a fool!" his brother, Asa, often said impatiently.

"He isn't fit to be round here." But the Squire steadily refused to turn Jim off.