He used to take a flowing bowl perhaps three times a day; he needed it to brace his nerves, or drive the blues away, but as for chaps who drank too much, they simply made him tired; "a drink," he said, "when feeling tough, is much to be desired; some men will never quit the game while they can raise a bone, but I can drink the old red booze, or let the stuff alone." He toddled on the downward path, and seedy grew his clothes, and like a beacon in the night flamed forth his bulbous nose; he lived on slaw and sweitzer cheese, the free lunch brand of fruits, and when he sought his downy couch he always wore his boots; "some day I'll cut it out," he said; "my will is still my own, and I can hit the old red booze, or let the stuff alone." One night a prison surgeon sat by this poor pilgrim's side, and told him that his time had come to cross the great divide. "I've known you since you were a lad," the stern physician said, "and I have watched you as you tried to paint the whole world red, and if you wish, I'll have engraved upon your churchyard stone: 'He, dying, proved that he could let the old red booze alone.'" _End of The Road_ Some day this heart will cease to beat; some day these worn and weary feet will tread the road no more; some day this hand will drop the pen, and never never write again those rhymes which are a bore. And sometimes, when the stars swing low, and mystic breezes come and go, with music in their breath, I think of Destiny and Fate, and try to calmly contemplate this bogie men call Death. Such thinking does not raise my hair; my cheerful heart declines to scare or thump against my vest; for Death, when all is said and done, is but the dusk, at set of sun, the interval of rest. But lines of sorrow mark my brow when I consider that my frau, when I have ceased to wink, will have to face a crowd of gents who're selling cheap tin monuments, and headstones made of zinc. And crayon portrait sharks will come, and make the house with language hum, and ply their deadly game; they will enlarge my photograph, attach a hand-made epitaph, and put it in a frame. They'll hang that horror on the wall, and then, when neighbors come to call, they'll view my crayon head, and wipe sad tears from either eye, and lean against the chairs, and cry: "How fortunate he's dead!" _The Dying Fisherman_