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“Come, that’ll do for one day!” broke in Harry Arnold, the grog-shop-keeper, at this point, not relishing too well the allusions to himself, nor, indeed, the drift of the narrative, which he very well understood.

“No–no–go on! go on!” urged two or three of the group. But Jim Braddock said nothing, though he looked very thoughtful.

“I’ll soon get through,” replied the Washingtonian, showing no inclination to abandon his text. “You see, I did not, of course, go home with poor Bradly, and he left me with a drunken, half-angry malediction. That night he went down into his cellar, late, to draw some whiskey, and forgot his candle, which had been so carelessly set down, that it set fire to a shelf, and before it was discovered the fire had burned through the floor above.

“Nearly all their furniture was saved, whiskey-barrel and all, but the house was burned to the ground. Since that time, Bradly will tell you that luck has been against him. He has been going down, down, down, every year, and now does scarcely anything but lounge about Harry Arnold’s grog-shop and drink, while his poor wife and children are in want and suffering, and have a most wretched look, as you may see by this picture on the pledge. As for the whiskey-barrel, that was rolled down here about a month ago, and sold for half a dollar’s worth of liquor, and here I now stand upon it, and make it the foundation of a temperance speech.

“Now, let me ask you all seriously, if you do not think that James Bradly owes his rapid downfall, in a great measure, to the fact that Harry Arnold would not pay him a just debt in anything but whiskey? And against Harry Arnold really your friend, that you are so willing to beggar your wives and children to put money in his till? I only ask the questions. You can answer then at your leisure. So ends my speech.”

“You are an insulting fellow, let me tell you!” the grog-shop-keeper said, as he turned away, angrily, and went behind his counter.

The Washingtonian took no notice of this, but went to Jim Braddock, who stood in a musing attitude near the door, and said–

“You will sign now, won’t you, Jim?”

“No, I will not!” was his gruff response.

“I am not going to sign away my liberty for you or anybody else. So long as I live, I’ll be a free man.”

“That’s right, Jim! Huzza for liberty!” shouted his companions.

“Yes, huzza for liberty! say I,” responded Braddock, in the effort to rally himself, and shake off the thoughts and feelings that. Malcom’s narrative had conjured up a narrative that proved to be too true a history of his own downfall.

“It was a shame for you to do what you did down at Harry Arnold’s,” Braddock said to the Washingtonian about half an hour afterwards, meeting him on the street.

“Do what, Jim!”

“Why, rake up all my past history as you did, and insult Harry in his own house into the bargain.”

“How did I insult Harry Arnold?”

“By telling about that confounded whiskey-barrel that I have wished a hundred times had been in the bottom of the sea, before it ever fell into my hands.”

“I told the truth, didn’t I?”

“O yes–it was all true enough, and a great deal too true.”

“He owed you a bill?”

“Yes.”

“And you wanted your money?”

“Yes.”

“But Harry wouldn’t pay you in anything but whiskey?”

“No, he would not.”

“And so you took a barrel of whiskey, that you did not want, in payment?”

“I did.”

“But would much rather have had the money?”

“Of course, I would.”

“And yet, you are so exceedingly tender of Harry Arnold’s feelings, notwithstanding his agency in your ruin, that you would not have him reminded of his original baseness–or rather his dishonesty in not paying you in money, according to your understanding with him, for your work?”

“I don’t see any use in raking up these old things.”