make excuses for myself, for still being here, and becoming more and more complicated. For the truth is I have become attached to these men; the boozers, the brawlers, the dead beats. The men who drink because they like it and what comes with it. And those who drink not because they like it and what comes with it, but because of something building up in them they know no other way of quelling. Yes, the alcoholics. The man who drinks because he finds a temporary escape from himself and the world as he knows it. So Jimmy Ramsay sits down in an armchair in our tiny lounge-dining room. He has just recovered from a bout of drinking and is very sheepish and very repentant. And he says, ‘Well I'm off the booze now. No more till Christmas.’ Sometimes it's ‘Well, I'm off it for good now. It gets a man nowhere. I'll start saving for a trip home.’ Jimmy is from the old country. The North of England somewhere. We all smile to ourselves and look sadly at Jimmy; for we know. We've heard this story before. A week passes and we can see Jimmy getting moody and his face becoming drawn and haggard. ‘It won't be long now,’ we say to ourselves, and sure enough one night when we come home for tea, Jimmy is sitting there drunk and singing and apparently happy—telling us what a long time we'll all be dead, so we may as well enjoy ourselves while we can. And always there is the silly sheepish grin on his face. I say to Charley O'Neil next to me at the table, ‘Poor old Jim it's got him.’ The tragedy is that Jimmy is only thirty-two. He drinks almost always alone. And when he makes those efforts to give up drinking he doesn't try to replace it with something else like sport or a hobby or a woman friend, maybe, but just sits about in the dining room in the evenings or through the weekends, reading, and becoming very bored and tense. Sometimes he will go for a walk. That's all. Then there are the older drinkers; like old Ted Wiley and the two Thompson brothers who were here for a time a little while back. Tip and Jake. They used to be boxers. They're not as erratic as Jimmy Ramsay, and don't go about saying they will give up drinking. Perhaps the pledge is a silent one; I've never heard them say it aloud yet. They must have become resigned to their fate and accept it. Working and drinking. Drinking and working. They don't fluctuate from the extreme of being drunk and happy, or sober and de-pressed, like Jimmy. They just drift along with it now, and have learnt to live with it. Their room always smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke. Dirty beer glasses stood on the dresser and on the floor. There were ring stains on the dresser and on the wooden arms of the arm chairs, and even on the window sills. The other chap, old Ted Wiley, was married once (he has a photograph of his wife on the dresser in his room) and he is forever blaming her for his present condition. ‘It was the missus,’ he said to me once, when I had visited him in his room, ‘The bitch!’ ‘Perhaps so, Ted,’ I thought, ‘Perhaps so Perhaps you drink too much. Perhaps some times you talk too much. A lot of rot sometimes too. Perhaps you're right—it was the missus's fault. I'm not going to condemn you old man. See what I'm like when I'm your age.’ Sometimes I think he has very good memories to look back on. And sometimes I think some of his memories are not so good. But he might be a darned sight happier than I am. I don't know. Even if he is an old man who drinks more than he should, and still has to wash his own clothing, and live alone in one crumby room in a crumby boarding-house… I don't know. Ted. You're too old for me to guess. I'll wait till I'm your age. Then there are the cleaner-living old men who live out their resigned bachelor lives; unnoticed; unobtrusive, except now and then when one of them comes to light in some argument or other on some topic that he has strong views on. These arguments invariably take place in the dining room in the evening when the meal is over and we're just sitting around. But no bright light will they kindle now. They work; keep their rooms reasonably tidy, perhaps have a hobby; are pleasant to talk to most times. They have the occasional spree. I often see them sitting in the old tram shed in the sun in the Exchange—old men finding companionship in themselves; talking. They may have been married before. They may have been single all their lives. They may have been well off once; I cannot tell. They never talk much about themselves; about their past. Yes, the truth is I have become attached to these men. There is hardly a dull moment with them. The dead-beats. The brawlers. The newly-released from prison, with their short prison haircut that is just beginning to grow again. And their feelings towards society no better when they ‘went in’. In fact, they may even be a little worse now. The labourers just in from a dirty heavy day