"Oh, you're temperance, are yer? Well, I don't think none the wuss of yer for standing by yer colors. Between us, it would be better for me if I was a little more so. Hang it all! I take a drop too much now and then. But what is a fellow to do, roughing it up and down the world like me? I should often get lonely and mope in the corner as you did, if I didn't get up steam. When I am down in the mouth I take a drink to 'liven me up, and when I feel good I take a drink to make me feel better. When I wouldn't take a drink on my own hook, I meet somebody that I'd ought to drink with. It is astonishing how many occasions there are to drink, 'specially when a man's travelling, like me." "No fear but what the devil will make occasions enough," said Dennis. "What has the devil got to do with it?" asked the man, gruffly. Just then the miserable wretch entered who, appearing opportunely in Gavin's Hotel, had cured Dennis of his desire to drink, when weary and despondent, for the sake of the effects. For a moment they looked at the blear-eyed, trembling wreck of a man, and then Dennis asked, "Had God any hand in making that man what he is?" "I should say not," said Bill Cronk, emphatically. "Well, I should say the devil had," said Dennis; "and there behind the bar are the means used--the best tool he has, it seems to me; for with it he gets hold of men with some heart and soul in them, like you." The man winced under the words that both conscience and experience told him were true; at the same time he was propitiated by Dennis's good opinion of him. He gave a big, good-natured laugh, slapped Dennis on the shoulder, and said: "Wal, stranger, p'raps you're right. 'Tain't every temperance lecturer though that has an awful example come in just at the right time so slick. But you've stood by yer colors, and we won't quarrel. Tell us, now, if it ain't private, what you're so chopfallen about." Dennis told his story, as grateful for this rough sympathy as a thirsty traveller would be in finding a spring though surrounded by thorns and rocks. The round, jolly face actually grew long and serious through interest in the young man's tribulations. After scratching a shaggy but practical head for a few moments, Bill spoke as follows: "Seems to me the case is just this: here you are, a young blooded colt, not broken to either saddle or thills--here you are whinnying around a market where they want nothing but dray-hosses. People look shy at you--usually do at a strange hoss. Few know good p'ints when they see 'em. When they find you ain't broke in to nothin', they want you to work for nothin'. I see how you can't do this. And yet fodder is runnin' short, and you must do somethin'."