“Well, I expect you and I have been differently brought up, then. My father thinks it is the very worst and most dangerous habit a young man can get into. As for the harm, seems to me it is plain enough in this case at any rate. If it hadn’t been for that glass we wouldn’t be in this fix now, and mother wouldn’t be breaking her heart at home, as I’m sure she is at this minute, for not knowing what has become of us.” “I hadn’t thought of it in that light,” said Wolfe, who had never been taught as Breeze had, to regard drinking as a sin. “I wish I could get you to think of it in that light now,” said Breeze. “Oh, Wolfe! if you would only promise, this very minute, that you’d never touch another glass of liquor as long as you live, I believe I should be glad that all this had happened--will you?” Wolfe looked at him for a moment without speaking, then he said, “Would you rather I’d promise you that than anything else, Breeze?” “Yes, I would.” “Then I’ll do it. Not long ago you risked your life to save mine, and I told you that from that time on it was at your service. This is the first thing you have asked of me since, and I’m not the lad to go back on my word. So now I promise you, and there’s my hand on it, that so long as I live I’ll never taste another drop of strong drink unless you ask me to.” “Then you never will,” said Breeze, smiling; “and, Wolfe, if you only knew how glad I am to have that promise, it would make you very happy to think you had given it to me.” “It makes me happy already to see you smile again, for I begin to see now how I have brought on all this trouble.” “Let’s not call it trouble any longer,” said Breeze, cheerily, “but do as my mother does, and try to look on the bright side of it. We were coming to the Banks, anyway, in a week or so, and perhaps this trip will be luckier than the one on the _Fish-hawk_ would have been, who knows?” Just then the skipper came up to where they were sitting, and said, “Well, boys! how goes it now? Feeling any better than you did?” “Yes, very much,” answered Breeze, “but not so well as we should if you’d only get rid of the idea that I was drunk when we came aboard last night.” “It’s true, skipper,” added Wolfe, earnestly, “I was a little under the weather, I acknowledge, but Breeze, here, never drinks, and was as sober as a halibut. I can vouch for that. And I’m never going to get that way again either. I’ve sworn off.” “Oh, well,” answered the skipper, carelessly, “it’s all right now. There isn’t a drop aboard this craft,[F] so I ain’t afraid but that you’ll keep straight enough till the end of the trip anyhow.” ----- Footnote F: As a rule, the Gloucester fishing skippers pride themselves upon never allowing any liquor to be carried to sea aboard their vessels. -----