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“The use is, to enable you to see your folly so clearly as to cause you to abandon it. I am sure you not only see it now, but feel it strongly.”

“Well, suppose I do?–what then?”

“Why, sign the pledge, and become a sober man.”

“I’ve made up my mind never to sign a pledge,” was the emphatic answer.

“Why?”

“Because, I am determined to live and die a free man. I’ll never sign away my liberty. My father was a free man before me, and I will live and die a free man!”

“But you’re a slave now.”

“It is not true! I am free.–Free to drink, or free to et it alone, as I choose.”

“You are mistaken, Jim. You have sold yourself into slavery, and the marks of the chains that still bind you, are upon your body. You are the slave of a vile passion that is too strong for your reason.”

“I deny it. I can quit drinking if I choose.”

“Then why don’t you quit?”

“Because I love to drink.”

“And love to see your wife’s cheek growing paler and paler every day–and your children ragged and neglected?”

“Malcom!”

“I only asked the question, Jim.”

“But you know that I don’t love to see them in the condition they are.”

“And still, you say that you can quit drinking whenever you choose, but will not do so, because you love the taste, or the effect of the liquor, I don’t know which?”

Braddock’s feelings were a good deal touched, as they had been, ever since Malcom’s temperance speech in the grog-shop. He stood silent for some time, and then said–

“I know it’s too bad for me to drink as I do, but I will break off.”

“You had better sign the pledge then.”

“No, I will not do that. As I have told you, I am resolved never to sign away my liberty.”

“Very well. If you are fixed in your resolution, I suppose it is useless for me to urge the matter. For the sake, then, of your wife and children, break away from the fetters that bind you, and be really free. Now you are not only a slave, but a slave in the most debasing bondage.”

The two then separated, and Jim Braddock–in former years it was Mr. Braddock–returned to his house; a very cheerless place, to what it had once been. Notwithstanding his abandonment of himself to drink and idleness, Braddock had no ill-nature about him. Though he neglected his family, he was not quarrelsome at home. she might, and talked hard to him, he never retorted, but always turned the matter off with a laugh or a jest. With his children, he was always cheerful, and frequently joined in their sports, when not too drunk to do so. All this cool indifference, as it seemed to her, frequently irritated his wife, and made her scold away at him with might and main. He had but one reply to make whenever this occurred, and that was–

“There–there–Keep cool, Sally! It will all go in your lifetime, darling!”

As he came into the house after the not very pleasant occurrence that had taken place at Harry Arnold’s, he saw by Sally’s excited face and sparkling eyes that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter, Sally?” he asked.

“Don’t ask me what’s the matter, if you please!” was her tart reply.

“Yes, but I want to know? Something is wrong.”

“Something is always wrong, of course,” Sally rejoined–“and something always will be wrong while you act as you do: It’s a burning shame for any man to abuse his family as you are abusing yours. Jim–“

“There–there. Keep cool, Sally! It will all go in your lifetime, darling!” Jim responded, in a mild, soothing tone.

“O yes:–It’s very easy to say ‘keep cool!’ But I’m tired of this everlasting ‘keep cool!’ Quit drinking and go to work, and then it’ll be time to talk about keeping cool. Here I’ve been all the morning scraping up chips to make the fire burn. Not a stick in the wood-pile, and you lazing it down to Harry Arnold’s. I wish to goodness he was hung! It’s too bad! I’m out of all manner of patience!”