talk about Dr. Tilton and his clerk. Then they began
to shun the store. Not all, though, for a line of red noses and trembling
hands and unsteady knees filed into the store, and not the sick people
sent orders, but old topers frequented the place more and more. Dr. Tilton
noticed the change, and was alarmed. Still he did not change that habit of
taking "only a glass." Will Somers was unhappy. He saw his mistake, and
knew that the community frowned upon him. He rarely whistled now. As for
the musical instrument he once loved to perform upon, it was a silent
piece of furniture. He had some fine qualities of character, and his
vulnerable side was his susceptibility to outside influence. The enemy had
found a weak wall on that side of his character, and there successfully
assaulted him. Will knew that his misconduct grieved Aunt Stanshy. The
club felt it, for by degrees the bad news reached them. It seemed as if
each one was burdened by a load of guilt--as if having served in Dr.
Tilton's store, Charlie, Sid, Tony, and the rest had there sinned, and, in
consequence, each had been seen tipsy on the street, and each carried a
load that bowed him.

It was Charlie who happened to be at home when his teacher was calling on
Aunt Stanshy, and he accidentally overheard a fragment of the
conversation. When Miss Barry was fairly out of the house, and Aunt
Stanshy was returning through the entry to her kitchen-work, sighing by
the way, Charlie ran to her and excitedly said, "We--we--will get up a
meeting!"

"A meeting about what?"

"Why, why, temperance."

"Who get it up?"

"We--we boys--our club."

Aunt Stanshy guessed at once the occasion and object of Charlie's remarks,
that he had heard the conversation between her and her caller, and that
this proposition for a temperance meeting was to meet the grave
necessities of the hour.

"Yes, yes," he said, "let's go and see teacher about it"

"What, go now?"

"Yes, you and she can talk it over."

In a few minutes Charlie and Aunt Stanshy were hurrying down the street as
if suddenly summoned by the pressing sickness of a friend.

"O, let's get Sid," suggested Charlie, as they neared Sid Waters's house.

"Well," replied Aunt Stanshy.

Sid, whose appetite never failed him, was eating a lunch, but he responded
at once to Charlie's invitation to "Come out."

"What's up, Charlie? I am the man for you," replied the president, who had
an abundance of resources at his command, an