could lap up the booze was a caution. He
would drink one bunch of boys under the table, then leave them and go on
to another. He would start in early in the morning and keep on going
till the last thing at night. And he never got hilarious even; it didn't
seem to phase him; he was as sober after the twentieth drink as when he
started. Gee! but he was a wonder."

The others nodded their heads appreciatively.

"He was a fine, healthy-looking chap, too; the booze didn't seem to hurt
him. Never saw such a constitution. I often watched him, for I suspected
him of 'sluffing,' but no! He always had a bigger drink than every one
else, always drank whisky, always drank it neat, and always had a chaser
of water after. I said to myself: 'What's your system?' and I got to
studying him hard. Then, one day, I found him out."

"What was it?"

"Well, one day I noticed something. I noticed he always held his glass
in a particular way when he drank, and at the same time he pressed his
stomach in the region of the 'solar plexus.' So that night I took him
aside.

"'Look here, Podstreak,' I said, 'I'm next to you.' I really wasn't, but
the bluff worked. He grew white.

"'For Heaven's sake, don't give me away,' he cried; 'the boys'll lynch
me.'

"'All right,' I said; 'if you'll promise to quit.'

"Then he made a full confession, and showed me how he did it. He had an
elastic rubber bag under his shirt, and a tube going up his arm and down
his sleeve, ending in a white nozzle inside his cuff. When he went to
empty his glass of whisky he simply pressed some air out of the rubber
bag, put the nozzle in the glass, and let it suck up all the whisky. At
night he used to empty all the liquor out of the bag and sell it to a
saloon-keeper. Oh, he was a phoney piece of work.

"'I've been a total abstainer (in private) for seven years,' he told me.
'Yes,' I said, 'and you'll become one in public for another seven.' And
he did."

Several men had dropped in to swell this Bohemian circle. Some had
brought bottles. There was a painter who had been "hung," a Mus Bac., an
ex-champion amateur pugilist, a silver-tongued orator, a man who had
"suped" for Mansfield, and half a dozen others. The little cabin was
crowded, the air hazy with smoke, the conversation animated. But mostly
it was a monologue by the inimitable Yorick.

Suddenly the conversation turned to the immorality of the town.

"Now, I have a theory," said the Pote, "that the regenera