“Yes,” replied Crupp, “there _are_ such. Lots of young fellows drink only because they think it’s smart, and because they haven’t got man enough in them to stop when they want to. They’re like a lot of wolves--plucky enough when they’re together, but a live rooster could scare one of them if he caught him alone. _I’m_ going to look out for _that_ crowd myself; they need somebody to preach to ’em wherever he can catch ’em, and I know where they hang out. But I’m not through with the other kind yet. There’s Fred Macdonald, he’s going to be the hardest man to manage in the whole lot. Good family, you know--got a judge for a father, and ambitious as the----ambitious as Napoleon Bonaparte. He’s in with all the steamboat fellows, and whisky is an angel alongside of some things they carry. They’ll ruin him, sure. Steamboating looks like something big to him, you know; it shows off better than country stores and saw-mills. It’s no use talkin’ to him; I’ve tried it once or twice, for I know the steamboat people of old; but he as good as told me to mind my own business. Now if some of the business men could get up something enterprising, and put Fred at the head of it, on condition that he wouldn’t drink any more, they might make money and save him from going to the--the bad. _I’ll_ put some money into the thing, for I believe in Fred. Of course he’ll have to be watched a little, for he may be too venturesome; but he can get more trade and get more work out of his men than any other man in this county.” “Mr. Crupp,” said the minister, again taking the hand of the newly-made reformer, and laying his own left hand affectionately upon Mr. Crupp’s right elbow, “I cannot find words adequate to the expression of my admiration of your earnestness in this great moral movement. But I must confess that your treatment of the subject is one to which I am utterly unaccustomed. I have been wont to regard intemperance solely as an indication of an infirm will and a depraved appetite, but your theory seems plausible; indeed, I do not see that either of our respective standpoints need be wrong. But, with regard to the employment of the reformatory means you suggest, I am not a capable adviser. It might be well for you to consult some of our leading business men.” “That’s what I am going to do,” replied Crupp. “And I am going to see the doctors, too, and all the other ministers. What I want of _you_ is, to back me up; preach at these fellows that are well enough off to make themselves useful.”