Why did he invite his brother up here
now when he needed to recover from the swift pace of last winter
in New York? You know--or you don't know, I suppose, but you'll
know it now--when he and Uncle Jim got together there was nothing
to it but one drink after another. Doctor Putnam was quite
disgusted, at least he professed to be, but, Craig," he lowered
his voice to a whisper, as if the very forest had ears, "they're
all alike--they've been just waiting for Uncle Lewis to drink
himself to death. Oh," he added bitterly, "there's no love lost
between me and the relatives on that score, I can assure you."
"How did you find him that morning?" asked Kennedy, as if to turn
off this unlocking of family secrets to strangers.
"That's the worst part of the whole affair," replied Tom, and
even in the dusk I could see the lines of his face tighten. "You
know Uncle Lewis was a hard drinker, but he never seemed to show
it much. We had been out on the lake in the motor-boat fishing
all the afternoon and--well, I must admit both my uncles had had
frequent recourse to 'pocket pistols,' and I remember they
referred to it each time as 'bait.' Then after supper nothing
would do but fizzes and rickeys. I was disgusted, and after
reading a bit went to bed. Harrington and my uncles sat up with
Doctor Putnam--according to Uncle Jim--for a couple of hours
longer.
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