myself. I am a genuine temperance man I have always supposed. I accord
with everything that you have said on the subject, and still I don't
believe I see the connection between wine drinking and using the article
as a condiment, or in my cakes and jellies."

"Well, sir," said Theodore, turning toward him brightly, "the same Bible
reads: 'If meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no more meat
while the world stands;' and if we are to interpret the Bible according
to its spirit, why doesn't it read with equal plainness; 'If wine maketh
my brother to offend--'"

"But you surely do not think that an appetite for wine drinking can be
cultivated from an innocent jelly?"

Theodore looked in grave surprise at his questioner as he said:

"That remark proves, sir, that you were not brought up in the atmosphere
which surrounded my younger days, and also that you were never one of
the waiters at the Euclid House; but that it takes much less than that
to cultivate, or worse, to arouse an already cultivated appetite, I
believe all trustworthy statements that have ever been made on the
subject will bear me witness. Mr. Ryan, if you were a reformed drunkard,
seated at this table, would you dare to eat that wine jelly?"

Mr. Ryan spoke dryly, laconically, but distinctly:

"No."

Theodore turned to Mr. Stephens again.

"'And the second is like unto it,'" he said, speaking low and gently.
"'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'"

"But my neighbor isn't here," answered Mr. Stephens, playfully. "At
least not the reformed drunkard of whom you speak; if he were I would be
careful."

"But if you meet him on the street to-night," answered Theodore, in the
same manner, "don't, I beg of you, say anything to him about his evil
habits, because he may ask you if you neither touch, taste nor handle
the accursed stuff; and while you are trying to stammer out some excuse
for your condiments, he might suggest to you that you use the poison in
your way and he uses it in his, and there is many a brain that can not
see the difference between the two; in which case it seems to me to
become the old story, 'If meat maketh my brother to offend.'"

Mr. Stephens laughed.

"He ought to have been a lawyer instead of a merchant. Don't you think
so, Ryan?" he asked, glancing admiringly at the flushed young face.

"I told him so several years ago," said Mr. Ryan.

Theodore was roused and excited; he could not let the subject drop.

"I ca