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“It is, indeed. You’ll make your fortune out of this, Graves.”

“Do you think so?” the pleased liquor-seller responded, with a broad smile of satisfaction.

“I’ve not the least doubt of it,” Joe, or Joseph Bancroft, said,–“I had half resolved to join the temperance society this day. But your ‘Sub-Treasury’ has shaken my resolution. I shall never be able to do it now in this world, nor in the next, either, if I can only get you in the same place with me to make ‘Sub-Treasury!’ Ha! ha! ha!”

“A Sub-Treasury,” said another young man, coming up to the bar.

“Here, landlord, let us have one of your–what do you call ’em? O, Sub-Treasuries!” was the request of another.

“Hallo, Sandy! What new-fangled stuff is this you’ve got?” broke in a half-drunken creature, staggering up, and holding on to the bar-railing. “Let us have one, will you?”

Both Sandy and Graves were now kept as busy as they could be, mixing liquors and serving customers. The advertisement which had been inserted in two or three of the morning papers, in the following words, had answered fully the rum-sellers’ expectations.

“Drop in at the HARMONY HOUSE, and try a ‘Sub-Treasury.’ ‘What is a Sub-Treasury?’ you ask. Come and see for yourself, and taste for yourself. Old Graves’ word for it, you’ll never want anything else to wet your whistle with, as long as you live.”

All through the forenoon the run was kept up steadily, dozens of new faces appearing at the bar, and cheering the heart of the tavern-keeper with the prospect of a fresh set of customers. About two o’clock, succeeded a pause.

“That works admirably,–don’t it, Sandy?” said Mr. Graves, as soon as the bar-room was perfectly clear, for the first time, since morning.

“Indeed, it does. They havn’t given me time to blow. But aint some folks easily gulled?”

“Easily enough, Sandy. This Sub-Treasury they think something wonderful. But it’s only rum after all, by another name, and in a little different form. A ‘cobbler,’ or a ‘julep’ has lost its attractions; but get up some new name for an old compound, and you go all before the wind again.”

“I think we might tempt some of the new converts to temperance with this. Bill Riley, for instance.”

“No doubt. I’ll see if I can’t come across Bill; he is too good a customer to lose.”

And so saying, Mr. Graves retired from the bar-room, to get his dinner, feeling better satisfied with himself than he had been for a long time. After eating heartily, and drinking freely, he went into his handsomely furnished parlour, and reclined himself upon a sofa, thinking still, and with a pleasurable emotion that warmed his bosom, of the success of his expedient to draw custom. He had been lying down, it seemed to him, but a few moments, when a tap at the door, to which he responded with a loud “come in,” was followed by the entrance of a thin, pale, haggard-looking creature, her clothes soiled, and hanging loosely, and in tatters about her attenuated body. By the hand she held a little girl, from whose young face had faded every trace of childhood’s happy expression. She, too, was thin and pale, and had a fixed, stony look, of hopeless suffering. They came up to where he still lay upon the sofa, and stood looking down upon him in silence.

“Who are you? What do you want?” the rum-seller ejaculated, raising himself up with a strange feeling about his heart.

“The wife and child of one of your victims! He is dying, and wishes to see you.”

“Who is he? What is his name?” asked the tavern-keeper, while his face grew pale, and his lips quivered.

“William Riley,” was the mournful reply.

“Go home, woman! Go home! I cannot go with you! What good can I do your husband?”

“You must go! You shall go!” shrieked the wretched being, suddenly grasping the arm of Mr. Graves, with a tight grip, while her hand seemed to burn his arm, as if it were a hand of fire.