“So you have been drinking my wine, it seems,” laughed Mr. Smith, as soon as the man with the stomach pump had retired.

“I only took a little toll,” said Mr. Jones, back into whose pale face the color was beginning to come, and through whose almost paralyzed nerves was again flowing from the brain a healthy influence.  “But don’t say any thing about it!  Don’t for the world!”

“I won’t, on one condition,” said Mr. Smith, whose words were scarcely coherent, so strongly was he convulsed with laughter.

“What is that?”

“You must become a teetotaller.”

“Can’t do that,” replied Mr. Jones.

“Give me a day or two to make up my mind.”

“Very well.  And now, good bye; the sun is nearly down, and it will be night before I get home.”

And Mr. Smith shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Jones and hurriedly retired, trying, but in vain, to leave the house in a grave and dignified manner.  Long before Mr. Jones had made up his mind to join the teetotallers, the story of his taking toll was all over the town, and for the next two or three months he had his own time of it.  After that, it became an old story.

“THOU ART THE MAN!”

“HOW can you reconcile it to your conscience to continue in your present business, Mr. Muddler?” asked a venerable clergyman of a tavern-keeper, as the two walked home from the funeral of a young man who had died suddenly.

“I find no difficulty on that score,” replied the tavern-keeper, in a confident tone:  “My business is as necessary to the public as that of any other man.”

“That branch of it, which regards the comfort and accommodation of travellers, I will grant to be necessary.  But there is another portion of it which, you must pardon me for saying, is not only uncalled for by the real wants of the community, but highly detrimental to health and good morals.”

“And pray, Mr. Mildman, to what portion of my business do you allude?”

“I allude to that part of it which embraces the sale of intoxicating drinks.”

“Indeed! the very best part of my business.  But, certainly, you do not pretend to say that I am to be held accountable for the unavoidable excesses which sometimes grow out of the use of liquors as a beverage?”

“I certainly must say, that, in my opinions a very large share of the responsibility rests upon your shoulders.  You not only make it a business to sell liquors, but you use every device in your power to induce men to come and drink them.  You invent new compounds with new and attractive names, in order to induce the indifferent or the lovers of variety, to frequent your bar-room.  In this way, you too often draw the weak into an excess of self-indulgence, that ends, alas! in drunkenness and final ruin of body and soul.  You are not only responsible for all this, Mr. Muddler, but you bear the weight of a fearful responsibility!”

“I cannot see the subject in that light, Mr. Mildman,” the tavern-keeper said, rather gravely.  “Mine is an honest and honourable calling, and it is my duty to my family and to society, to follow it with diligence and a spirit of enterprise.”