TOM. You are right, Jack. He was a noble fellow, and a thorough seaman. There was nothing of the lubber about poor Ben: always the first man at his duty, and ready to share his last copper with a fellow-mortal in distress, whether seaman or landsman. Well, Ben once got into a great frolic ashore, and kicked up such a bobbery that the watchman clapped him in limbo for the night; and the justice next morning gave him such a clapper-clawing with his tongue, and bore down upon him so hard with his _reprimands_, as I think the lawyers call it, and raked him so severely fore and aft with his good advice, to wind up with, that Ben felt pretty sheepish; and, as he told us afterwards, didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels--on the truck, or on the keelson. He felt so sore about it, and so much ashamed of himself, that he did not touch a drop for six weeks. He then thought he would take it _moderately_ just enough to keep the steam up--or, as some folks say, he thought he would be a _temperate drinker_. O, Jack, that _temperate drinking_ is a famous net of old Satan's to catch fools in. Your temperate drinker treads on slippery ground; for as I verily believe that alcohol is one of the most active imps for the destruction of both body and soul, the temperate drinker is too often gradually led on by the fiend, until the habit becomes fixed and inveterate; and he drags a galling chain, each day riveted more strongly, and the poor wretch hourly becomes more callous to shame, until he sinks into the grave--_the drunkard's grave_. JACK. But, Tom, you don't mean to say that poor Ben's reel has been run off in that style, do you? TOM. Indeed, Jack, it is true, and sorry am I that it is so. Yes, I followed the worn-out hulk of Ben Hawser to the dark and silent grave a fortnight ago. He slipped his cable in the prime of life; and all along of _temperate drinking_ at first. Ben, like many other men, thought he was strong-minded, and could stop at a certain point; but he found, to his cost, that king Alcohol was stronger, and that when once he had forged his chains around his victim, he was sure of him, unless the grace of a merciful God intervened, and plucked him as a brand from the burning. So I advise every one to beware of _temperate drinking_. Give it a wide berth, or it may wreck you for time and for eternity.