He was silent a long time.
“What did you do then?” I asked.
“Headed for New York,” he said, “and got on a drunk. When I came round
I had barely eleven thousand dollars. I headed for Cook’s office and
bargained for a ten thousand dollar tour of the world, the most places
and the longest time they’d give for the money; the whole cost on them.
I not to need a cent after I started.”
“What date was that?” I asked.
He meditated and gave me some approximate indications rather rambling
and roundabout.
“What did you do after you left Cook’s?” I asked.
“I put a hundred dollars in a savings bank,” he said. “Bought a lot of
clothes and things and started.
“I kept pretty sober all round the world because the only way to get
full was by being treated and I had no cash to treat back with.
“When I landed in New York I thought I was all right for life. But no
sooner did I have my hundred and odd dollars in my pockets than I got
full again. I don’t seem able to keep sober.”
“Are you sober now?” I asked.
“Sure,” he asserted.
He seemed to shed his cosmopolitan vocabulary the moment he came back
to everyday matters.
“Let’s see you write what I tell you on this,” I suggested, handing him
a fountain-pen and a torn envelope, turned inside out.
Word by word after my dictation he wrote.
“Until you hear from me again
Yours truly,
No Name.”