This grew so strong that he wrote to his father, and was told briefly
that he who was to have kept up the family name had dragged it into
the dust of the race-courses, and had changed it at his own wish to
that of the Boy Plunger--and that the breach was irreconcilable.
Then this queer feeling came on, and he wondered why he could not eat,
and why he shivered even when the room was warm or the sun shining,
and the fear came upon him that with all this trouble and disgrace his
head might give way, and then that it had given way. This came to him
at all times, and lately more frequently and with a fresher, more
cruel thrill of terror, and he began to watch himself and note how he
spoke, and to repeat over what he had said to see if it were sensible,
and to question himself as to why he laughed, and at what. It was not
a question of whether it would or would not be cowardly; It was simply
a necessity. The thing had to be stopped. He had to have rest and
sleep and peace again. He had boasted in those reckless, prosperous
days that if by any possible chance he should lose his money he would
drive a hansom, or emigrate to the colonies, or take the shilling. He
had no patience in those days with men who could not live on in
adversity, and who were found in the gun-room with a hole in their
heads, and whose family asked their polite friends to believe that a
man used to firearms from his school-days had tried to load a hair-
trigger revolver with the muzzle pointed at his forehead.
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