a rough white suit,
busily cleaning the street with a broom and singing to himself: "How
does the little busy bee improve the shining hour." Another employe, who
was handling a little hose, was singing, "Little drops of water, little
grains of sand, Tra, la, la, la, _la_ la, Prohibition's grand."

"Why do they sing?" I asked. "Are they crazy?"

"Sing?" said Mr Narrowpath. "They can't help it. They haven't had a
drink of whisky for four months."

A coal cart went by with a driver, no longer grimy and smudged, but
neatly dressed with a high white collar and a white silk tie.

My companion pointed at him as he passed.

"Hasn't had a glass of beer for four months," he said.

"Notice the difference. That man's work is now a pleasure to him. He
used to spend all his evenings sitting round in the back parlours of the
saloons beside the stove. Now what do you think he does?"

"I have no idea."

"Loads up his cart with coal and goes for a drive--out in the country.
Ah, sir, you who live still under the curse of the whisky traffic little
know what a pleasure work itself becomes when drink and all that goes
with it is eliminated. Do you see that man, on the other side of the
street, with the tool bag?"

"Yes," I said, "a plumber, is he not?"

"Exactly, a plumber. Used to drink heavily--couldn't keep a job more
than a week. Now, you can't drag him from his work. Came to my house to
fix a pipe under the kitchen sink--wouldn't quit at six o'clock. Got
in under the sink and begged to be allowed to stay--said he hated to
go home. We had to drag him out with a rope. But here we are at your
hotel."

We entered.

But how changed the place seemed.

Our feet echoed on the flagstones of the deserted rotunda.

At the office desk sat a clerk, silent and melancholy, reading the
Bible. He put a marker in the book and closed it, murmuring "Leviticus
Two."

Then he turned to us.

"Can I have a room," I asked, "on the first floor?"

A tear welled up into the clerk's eye.

"You can have the whole first floor," he said, and he added, with a half
sob, "and the second, too, if you like."

I could not help contrasting his manner with what it was in the old
days, when the mere mention of a room used to throw him into a fit of
passion, and when he used to tell me that I could have a cot on the roof
till Tuesday, and after that, perhaps, a bed in the stable.

Things had changed indeed.

"Can I get breakfast in the grill room?"