The offer had no sooner been made than he met her son reeling in, drunk, at the front door.  As he made his escape the lad had insulted him.  This perhaps helped to open his eyes.  When he woke the next morning, or rather late in the next day, after his night’s work, he was no longer able to tell himself that the world was all right with him.  Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, that first matutinal retrospection, and prospection, into things as they have been and are to be; and the lowness of heart, the blankness of hope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done, some word ill-spoken, some money misspent,—­or perhaps a cigar too much, or a glass of brandy and soda-water which he should have left untasted?  And...