Chapter XXI

by Jack London

　　But behold! As soon as I went out on the adventure-path I met JohnBarleycorn again. I moved through a world of strangers, and theact of drinking together made one acquainted with men and openedthe way to adventures. It might be in a saloon with jingledtownsmen, or with a genial railroad man well lighted up and armedwith pocket flasks, or with a bunch of alki stiffs in a hang-out.Yes; and it might be in a prohibition state, such as Iowa was in1894, when I wandered up the main street of Des Moines and wasvariously invited by strangers into various blind pigs--I rememberdrinking in barber-shops, plumbing establishments, and furniturestores.

　　Always it was John Barleycorn. Even a tramp, in those halcyondays, could get most frequently drunk. I remember, inside theprison at Buffalo, how some of us got magnificently jingled, andhow, on the streets of Buffalo after our release, another jinglewas financed with pennies begged on the main-drag.

　　I had no call for alcohol, but when I was with those who drank, Idrank with them. I insisted on travelling or loafing with thelivest, keenest men, and it was just these live, keen ones thatdid most of the drinking. They were the more comradely men, themore venturous, the more individual. Perhaps it was too muchtemperament that made them turn from the commonplace and humdrumto find relief in the lying and fantastic sureties of JohnBarleycorn. Be that as it may, the men I liked best, desired mostto be with, were invariably to be found in John Barleycorn'scompany.

　　In the course of my tramping over the United States I achieved anew concept. As a tramp, I was behind the scenes of society--aye,and down in the cellar. I could watch the machinery work. I sawthe wheels of the social machine go around, and I learned that thedignity of manual labour wasn't what I had been told it was by theteachers, preachers, and politicians. The men without trades werehelpless cattle. If one learned a trade, he was compelled tobelong to a union in order to work at his trade. And his unionwas compelled to bully and slug the employers' unions in order tohold up wages or hold down hours. The employers' unions like-wisebullied and slugged. I couldn't see any dignity at all. And whena workman got old, or had an accident, he was thrown into thescrap-heap like any worn-out machine. I saw too many of this sortwho were making anything but dignified ends of life.

　　So my new concept was that manual labour was undignified, and thatit didn't pay. No trade for me, was my decision, and nosuperintendent's daughters. And no criminality, I also decided.That would be almost as disastrous as to be a labourer. Brainspaid, not brawn, and I resolved never again to offer my musclesfor sale in the brawn market. Brain, and brain only, would Isell.

　　I returned to California with the firm intention of developing mybrain. This meant school education. I had gone through thegrammar school long ago, so I entered the Oakland High School. Topay my way I worked as a janitor. My sister helped me, too; and Iwas not above mowing anybody's lawn or taking up and beatingcarpets when I had half a day to spare. I was working to get awayfrom work, and I buckled down to it with a grim realisation of theparadox.

　　Boy and girl love was left behind, and, along with it, Haydee andLouis Shattuck, and the early evening strolls. I hadn't the time.I joined the Henry Clay Debating Society. I was received into thehomes of some of the members, where I met nice girls whose skirtsreached the ground. I dallied with little home clubs wherein wediscussed poetry and art and the nuances of grammar. I joined thesocialist local where we studied and orated political economy,philosophy, and politics. I kept half a dozen membership cardsworking in the free library and did an immense amount ofcollateral reading.

　　And for a year and a half on end I never took a drink, nor thoughtof taking a drink. I hadn't the time, and I certainly did nothave the inclination. Between my janitor-work, my studies, andinnocent amusements such as chess, I hadn't a moment to spare. Iwas discovering a new world, and such was the passion of myexploration that the old world of John Barleycorn held noinducements for me.

　　Come to think of it, I did enter a saloon. I went to see JohnnyHeinhold in the Last Chance, and I went to borrow money. Andright here is another phase of John Barleycorn. Saloon-keepersare notoriously good fellows. On an average they perform vastlygreater generosities than do business men. When I simply had tohave ten dollars, desperate, with no place to turn, I went toJohnny Heinhold. Several years had passed since I had been in hisplace or spent a cent across his bar. And when I went to borrowthe ten dollars I didn't buy a drink, either. And Johnny Heinholdlet me have the ten dollars without security or interest.

　　More than once, in the brief days of my struggle for an education,I went to Johnny Heinhold to borrow money. When I entered theuniversity, I borrowed forty dollars from him, without interest,without security, without buying a drink. And yet--and here isthe point, the custom, and the code--in the days of my prosperity,after the lapse of years, I have gone out of my way by many a longblock to spend across Johnny Heinhold's bar deferred interest onthe various loans. Not that Johnny Heinhold asked me to do it, orexpected me to do it. I did it, as I have said, in obedience tothe code I had learned along with all the other things connectedwith John Barleycorn. In distress, when a man has no other placeto turn, when he hasn't the slightest bit of security which asavage-hearted pawn-broker would consider, he can go to somesaloon-keeper he knows. Gratitude is inherently human. When theman so helped has money again, depend upon it that a portion willbe spent across the bar of the saloon-keeper who befriended him.

　　Why, I recollect the early days of my writing career, when thesmall sums of money I earned from the magazines came with tragicirregularity, while at the same time I was staggering along with agrowing family--a wife, children, a mother, a nephew, and my MammyJennie and her old husband fallen on evil days. There were twoplaces at which I could borrow money; a barber shop and a saloon.The barber charged me five per cent. per month in advance. Thatis to say, when I borrowed one hundred dollars, he handed meninety-five. The other five dollars he retained as advanceinterest for the first month. And on the second month I paid himfive dollars more, and continued so to do each month until I madea ten strike with the editors and lifted the loan.

　　The other place to which I came in trouble was the saloon. Thissaloon-keeper I had known by sight for a couple of years. I hadnever spent my money in his saloon, and even when I borrowed fromhim I didn't spend any money. Yet never did he refuse me any sumI asked of him. Unfortunately, before I became prosperous, hemoved away to another city. And to this day I regret that he isgone. It is the code I have learned. The right thing to do, andthe thing I'd do right now did I know where he is, would be todrop in on occasion and spend a few dollars across his bar for oldsake's sake and gratitude.

　　This is not to exalt saloon-keepers. I have written it to exaltthe power of John Barleycorn and to illustrate one more of themyriad ways by which a man is brought in contact with JohnBarleycorn until in the end he finds he cannot get along withouthim.

　　But to return to the run of my narrative. Away from theadventure-path, up to my ears in study, every moment occupied, Ilived oblivious to John Barleycorn's existence. Nobody about medrank. If any had drunk, and had they offered it to me, I surelywould have drunk. As it was, when I had spare moments I spentthem playing chess, or going with nice girls who were themselvesstudents, or in riding a bicycle whenever I was fortunate enoughto have it out of the pawnbroker's possession.

　　What I am insisting upon all the time is this: in me was not theslightest trace of alcoholic desire, and this despite the long andsevere apprenticeship I had served under John Barleycorn. I hadcome back from the other side of life to be delighted with thisArcadian simplicity of student youths and student maidens. Also,I had found my way into the realm of the mind, and I wasintellectually intoxicated. (Alas! as I was to learn at a laterperiod, intellectual intoxication too. has its katzenjammer.)