“Look here, Crupp,” said he, “temperance is all very well; but I don’t think it’s my business to stand part of the expenses of reforming everybody, when I haven’t had anything to do with making drunkards. With you the case is different. You say your liquors were always good; but, like enough, that made men all the fonder of drinking the infernal things. You’re a public-spirited citizen, but you can’t deny that you’ve had a thousand times more to do with making drunkards than I have. The very fact that you _are_ a decent fellow yourself has made drinking halfway respectable in Barton. The crime’s right at your own door, and you ought to pay for it. You----” The Squire paused. Mr. Crupp’s face was very white and his teeth were tightly set. Mr. Crupp _had_ been known to throw a disorderly visitor at his bar halfway across the street; and although the Squire knew that his own avoirdupois was too great to be treated so contemptuously, he had no desire to feel the weight of Crupp’s fist. Besides, Crupp was a customer who bought a great deal and paid promptly, and the Squire did not like to offend him and lose his custom. So the Squire paused. “Go right on,” said Mr. Crupp very quietly. “I’ll not bear any malice. I’ve said a great many worse things to myself. Don’t hold in anything you’ve got on your mind.” “I’m done,” said the Squire, looking relieved and extending his hand. “Crupp, I think a good deal of you, and I’m ashamed of myself for boiling over as I did. But folks talk to me as if I was made of money. I paid out a good deal on the expense of the meeting; the parson’s been at me to help every lazy drunkard to get work; George Doughty wants more pay or less work, so he won’t have such a hankering after liquor; and now to be asked to help old Bunley, that’s owed me money a long time and never paid it, that came near helping one of my boys to a taste for liquor, that helps himself at my woodpile--it’s _too_ much, that’s all.” “Squire,” said Crupp, “isn’t there something in your Bible that’s not complimentary to men who say to the needy, ‘Depart: be ye warmed and fed,’ but don’t put their hands into their pockets to help the poor wretches along? I tell you that a man that’s got the love of drink fixed in every muscle in his body and every drop of his blood is worse off than any cold and hungry man you ever saw. Such men _sometimes_ help themselves out of their trouble, and stick to cold water; but the man that does it is more of a hero, and he’s got better stuff in him, than any other sort of sinner that ever repents. He’s got to be helped just like drowning men have to be, and you’ve got to take hold of him just as you do of a drowning man, by whatever part you can get the tightest grip on. Bunley’s pride’s the only handle you can find on _him_, and you can’t get at _that_ except by showing that you think enough of him to sink money in him.”