"Mr. Drake, do you know that your wife and child are all dressed up---in their prettiest white gowns, waiting for you to come back to bring them into town to-night for the promised treat? Don't you understand the pain that you're giving them by showing that you prefer a lot of red-nosed loafers in Miller's to your own wife and child? The unhappiness that you're causing them to-night isn't a circumstance to all the misery that you're piling up for them in the years to come. Switch off! Switch off, while you're yet man enough to be able to do it! Won't you do it---please? You must know just how happy that little kid will be when she sees you come swinging down the street to bring her and her mother into town. You know how that little tot's eyes will shine. Can't you hear her saying, `Here's papa! He's come.' Isn't that baby worth a twenty-mile walk for any man to see when he knows she's his own kiddie and waiting for him? Come along, now; they're both waiting for you; they will be the happiest pair you've seen in a long time." "I don't know but I will toddle along home," said Drake, rather shame-facedly. "I---I didn't realize how time was slipping by. Yes; I guess I'll go home. Much obliged to you for letting me know the time." But at that moment the door opened, and a voice called out: "Drake! Oh, Drake. Come here; we want you." "Can't, now," the young man called back. "I'm due at home." "Home?" came in two or three jeering voices. Then several men came out of the saloon, laughing boisterously. "Come back, Drake! We can't let you slip off like that. You're too good a fellow to play the sneak with us. Come on back!" "I---I tell you, I'm due at home," insisted Drake, though he spoke more weakly. "Hey! Here's Drake---says he's going to slip home on us!" called one of the tormentors. More men came out of the place, some of them staggering. With the new arrivals came one whom Dick and his friends rightly guessed to be Miller---a thickset man, with swaggering manner, insolent expression and rough voice. "What's this about your going home, Drake?" demanded one of the new arrivals. "I---I really ought to go home," Drake tried to explain. "Cut that out," ordered Miller roughly. "You're booked to spend the evening with us, and the evening has hardly begun." "I promised this young fellow I'd go home," said Drake slowly, "so I guess I will." "And what has this young feller got to say or do about it?" demanded Miller angrily, as He pushed his way to Drake's side, then glared at Dick Prescott. "And what have you got to say about his not going home?" Dick asked hotly. "Isn't this a free country, where a man may go home when he chooses?" "It's a free country, and a man has a right to spend his evening in my place when he's invited," Miller asserted roughly.