The Alcoholics Read Free Page B

side of his chair. "As you can see, Doctor, I have just had a hearty breakfast-scrambled eggs, wheat cakes, mil- Confound it sir! What are you smirking about?"
    "Sorry, General. You were saying?"
    "I was saying, Doctor Murphy, that I had just had a hearty breakfast and that I strongly felt the need for a drink by way of anchorage."
    "Now, that's what I like about you, General," said Doc. "That's the trait I like about all alcoholics, the thing that distinguishes them from the common gutter-drunk. They'll try to outwit you, but they'll almost never lie to you."
    "I don't-"
    "You say you had a hearty breakfast. You don't say you ate it… You didn't, did you, General? Your choice of words wasn't accidental?"
    The General smiled, reluctantly. His eyes, straying to the serving table, lit up again. "You're too sharp for me, Doctor. I don't know why I keep trying to deceive you. Now, I don't want to monopolize your time, so if you'll just instruct Rufus to re-fill my cigar lighter I'll…"
    "What do you intend to do with the fluid?"
    "What would one do with it?"
    The doctor waited. Now it was lighter fluid. He brought his hands down on his thighs with a weary slap, and stood up. "Arsenic mixes well with milk, too," he said, "and it acts a lot faster. How'll it be if I send you a shot of that?"
    "It might," said the General, "be a good idea."
    Doc stared down at the bowed head, his friendly concern for the old man mingling with his irritating but ever-absorbing interest in the problem which the man presented. The General's existence was outright defiance of all the known rules of medical science, his existence and that of practically every other patron of El Healtho. Everyone knew that when the alcohol in the bloodstream reached a small fraction of one percent, the person through whom that bloodstream flowed became a corpse. His heart stopped. He smothered. Everyone knew that alcohol rose up the spinal canal to the brain, pressing harder and harder against the fragile cells until they exploded and their owner became an imbecile.
    Everyone knew these things. Everyone but the alcoholics.
    Of course, they did die. Their brains did become damaged to the point of idiocy. But alcohol, more often than not was only one factor in those deaths and that damage. They were run over while drunk; they were beaten and kicked, with irreparable damage to the brain, in drunken brawls. Everything happened to them except the one thing which a logical science declared should happen.
    Of his own personal knowledge, Doctor Murphy had known but one man who had died of alcoholism.
    One might justifiably feel that violent death overtook the alcoholic before his affliction had the opportunity. But how, if that were true, could such elderly alcoholics as the General be explained? The General had drunk a full quart of whiskey in thirty minutes; the alcohol in his bloodstream had been sufficient to ignite (as Doc Murphy had proved) at the touch of a match. Yet he did not die and his health, for his age, was far better than average. His brain was "wet"- at least, important areas of it were wet to an ordinarily disabling extent. Yet he was very, very far from being an idiot. Doc wondered, and wondered, by God, why he wondered. For, as far as he could see, El Healtho was damned well washed up. He might be wrong; certainly, he intended to take another look at his financial books after breakfast. But, hell, he knew without looking. He'd been looking for months when he should have been out looking for a practice.
    Van Twyne? Would his family now take the next cautious step toward the goal which Murphy stood in front of? They would. They would do it today, through the medium of their family physician.
    And if El Healtho was washed up, if, in short, he did intend to tell the Van Twynes and their money to go to hell-if that was the case, why had he argued so bitterly with Judson?
    Dammit, oh, dammit to hell, anyway! Skip it. Let it ride a while. Here was the General, and