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140 not out of malice but out of madness. That again cooled him, made him feel clear and calm: it was only the confounded drink that drove him mad. . ..

But, as he grew older, he quieted down and mastered his hot blood, so that he was satisfied with a quiet liaison with a little woman whom he went to see at regular intervals; and suddenly, in his secret fits of gloom and blackness, it was borne in upon him that he must get married, that it was that confounded living alone in rooms which gave him the deep-lying discontent which he never spoke about, for it would never have done to let the others notice things which they would think queer and of which he himself was at heart ashamed. And then, as he lay quietly, under his sword-rack, he would think, ah, to get married, to have a dear little wife. . . and children, heaps of children. . . and not to dissipate your substance for nothing! . . . But children. . . Lord, Lord, how jolly, to have a whole tribe of children round you! . . . All that was kindly in him and friendly, not to say very romantic and extremely sentimental, now made him wax enthusiastic, under the sword-rack, the great, strong fellow who made the couch crack under him with his weight: Lord, Lord, how jolly! A whole tribe of children: not two or three, but a tribe, a tribe! . . . He smiled at the thought; after his riotous youth, it was a pleasant prospect: a nice