Grand Canary by A. J. Cronin

unavailing; there was a sort of scurried feeling that the incubus must be removed.
    Upon the day following the meeting, Harvey went into his laboratory and found an envelope upon his desk. It was the formal demand for his resignation.
    Incredulously he faced the shattering injustice of this final blow. It was beyond reason. The very walls rushed in upon him.
    Four years’ work, his whole soul straining in the cause of science; four years’ searching for the heart of truth; and now – he saw it in a flash – outcast, no position, no opportunity, no money. And his name a public obloquy. With luck he might secure himself, perhaps, a paltry assistantship to some unknown practitioner. But for the rest – he was finished.
    An agony of self-satire was in his soul. Without a word he rose, burned the records of his research, smashed the flasks which held the product of his work, and walked out of his laboratory.
    He went home. He faced the situation with a scathing, pitiless irony. But he wanted to forget – to forget as quickly as he could. And he began, not from weakness, but from a bitter hatred of life, to drink. His attitude was not heroic, but derisive. Alcohol – it was a drug: and as such he would use it. He was alone; the thought of women had never entered his head; and, with no capacity for friendship, only Gerald Ismay, the surgeon, had been there to witness this spectacle of saturation.
    But Ismay had been there. Yes. Each day of those three deadly weeks he had been – quite mildly – there; and by insinuation and insidious tact had finally advanced the suggestion of this voyage.
    Why not? A man might drink the better and lose himself the quicker upon a lonely ship. He had agreed, unthinking of the trap which Ismay had contrived. And now he was here; aboard this wretched ship; deprived of liquor; feeling so ill the sensation was like death.
    All at once he turned his head upon the pillow and with a start came back to himself. Someone had knocked upon the door. And immediately the handle turned and Jimmy Corcoran sidled his bony frame into the cabin. For a moment he stood grinning ingratiatingly, hat still on head, then he flexed both arms as though nonchalantly to elevate dumb-bells of enormous weight.
    â€˜How goes it, me boy? In other words, how does it go? D’ye feel muscle comin’ back on ye yet?’
    Harvey stared at him with an injured eye.
    â€˜How do you know that it doesn’t go?’ he muttered.
    Corcoran smiled again – in a friendly, intimate way. He touched his hat a shade farther back.
    â€˜No lunch, no tay, and now, by the looks on it, no dinner. Faith, it wouldn’t take a detictive to see that ye was out. And, knowin’ somethin’ about the old K. O., I just looked in to see if you was scramblin’ to your corner again.’
    â€˜The Good Samaritan,’ sneered Harvey.
    â€˜Sure.’
    A short silence came; then, at a sudden thought, Harvey raised himself upon his shoulder.
    â€˜They’ve been talking about me.’
    â€˜That’s right,’ Jimmy agreed; he hitched up his trousers and sat down easily upon the settee. ‘They’ve been talkin’ about ye all right. Had the whole of yer history weighed in and tested. A gintleman was sayin’ things. What they don’t know about ye now could be writ on a threepenny piece. But don’t get yer rag out. Stay cool and stick yer chin down, fella.’
    â€˜For God’s sake,’ cried Harvey in an agony of irritation, ‘don’t call me that. Call me anything under heaven but that.’
    â€˜Sure,’ said Jimmy agreeably.
    A silence fell, during which Harvey pressed his damp hand on his brow; then suddenly, with a concentrated bitterness of tone, he exclaimed:
    â€˜Why do you come in here? Can’t you see I want to be left alone?’
    Jimmy pulled the metal snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket, dipped in a broad forefinger and