then he slid down the wall to the floor, and Bertois and Sam carried him into the snake-room. You bet Bertois fixed Dick's drink alright. The trouble comes between season when the boys are off a few weeks. They come into town to kill time, but it works the other way round." Two days later the missioner was sitting writing at the hotel table when Bill, blear-eyed, unshaven and dirty, came staggering toward him. The voice was almost terrifying in its intensity of appeal, "For God's sake give me something to eat; I've had nothing but that stuff (pointing toward the bar-room) for three days." Before anything more could be said, Bertois, the proprietor, hurried from behind his desk, and grabbing Bill by the shoulder, uttered an oath, and dragged him to a door at the end of the hall. Unfastening the door with his latch-key he gave Bill a vigorous shove, and the intoxicated man, stumbling over some object, fell heavily to the floor. Banging the door, Bertois turned to the basement stairway just around the corner, and in a sharp voice called "Sam." Sam immediately responded to the call. "How in the ---- did Bill Bird get out of there." "Didn't know 'e was out, sir," was the reply. "Did you give anybody your key?" "Hi did not, sir." "Well, then, you must have left the door unlocked; mind you don't let any more of them d---- fools out." As calmly as was possible the missioner protested against the treatment Bill received. "What would you do with them? Would you want them around the house?" was the gruff reply. "Give them a bed? Not much! We don't keep beds for that brand. The only thing you can do is to kick 'em into the snake-room. You don't know anything about Bill's kind. He's seeing life; them fellows have been counting on this blow-out for months." An hour or so later the missioner found Sam alone in the basement. The old man was worthy of a better job than the doing of the dirtiest and most objectionable work around a lumber-town hotel, but times had gone hard with him of late years, and his few relatives were on the other side of the Atlantic. "No, sir, hit ain't the kind of place hi expected to be in at my hage, but beggars mustn't be choosers, you know, sir, and after hi cut me foot half off with a hax I ad to take wot I could get, especially as me rheumatiz bothered me a lot. Wot's the snake-room like, did you say? Hit just depends oo's hin it. Hit's chuck full these days, I'm sorry to say, and it hain't a sight yer reverence would like to see. You want a peep hin, eh? Well, hi don't know as how you'd be allowed; the boss is rather perticlar about who sees 'is customers hin the snake-room. It hain't a very good hadvertisement, hin my opinion."