“Scarcely possible,” replied Dr. Angier.

“How large do you think the percentage?”

“I have no means of knowing; but if we are to judge by the large army of drunkards in the land, it must be fearfully great.”

“Then we cannot invite to our houses fifty or a hundred guests, and give them as much wine and spirits as they care to drink, without seriously hurting some of them.  I say nothing of the effect upon unvitiated tastes; I refer only to those with diseased appetites who made happen to be present.”

“It will be bad for them, certainly.  Such people should stay at home.”

And saying this, Dr. Angier turned from the two gentlemen to speak with a professional friend who came toward him at the moment.

CHAPTER XII.

“The doctor likes his glass of wine,” remarked one of the gentlemen as Dr. Angier left them.

“Is that so?”

“Didn’t you observe his heightened color and the gleam in his eyes?”

“I noticed something unusual in his manner, but did not think it the effect of wine.”

“He is a reticent man, with considerable of what may be called professional dignity, and doesn’t often let himself down to laymen as he did just now.”

“There wasn’t much letting down, that I could see.”

“Perhaps not; but professional pride is reserved and sensitive in some persons.  It hasn’t much respect for the opinions of non-experts, and is chary of discussion with laymen.  Dr. Angier is weak, or peculiar if you please, in this direction.  I saw that he was annoyed at your reply to his remark that you do not cure a thirsty man by withholding water.  It was a little thing, but it showed his animus.  The argument was against him, and it hurt his pride.  As I said, he likes his glass of wine, and if he does not take care will come to like it too well.  A doctor has no more immunity from dypso-mania than his patient.  The former may inherit or acquire the disease as well as the latter.”

“How does the doctor know that he has not from some ancestor this fatal diathesis?  Children rarely if ever betray to their children a knowledge of the vices or crimes of their parents.  The death by consumption, cancer or fever is a part of oral family history, but not so the death from intemperance.  Over that is drawn a veil of silence and secresy, and the children and grandchildren rarely if ever know anything about it.  There may be in their blood the taint of a disease far more terrible than cancer or consumption, and none to give them warning of the conditions under which its development is certain.”

“Is it not strange,” was replied, “that, knowing as Dr. Angier certainly does, from what he said just now, that in all classes of society there is a large number who have in their physical constitutions the seeds of this dreadful disease—­that, as I have said, knowing this, he should so frequently prescribe wine and whisky to his patients?”