ith him in
the temperance cause; and it needs some further notice. This Johnson
was the customer with whom we became acquainted in another place, a
bitter opponent of the "Fifteen Gallon Law." Curiosity, as well as
appetite, led him into Miles's shop on the morning after the lecture,
for he wanted to hear about it. He had learned in some way that Miles
went, as he intimated to him, and therefore it was a good place to go
for information.

"So you went to hear Nat last night?" he said to Miles, as he entered
the shop. "Did he make a temperance man of you?" meaning this inquiry
for a jest.

"Nat spoke real well," answered Miles, "and his arguments were so good
that I can't answer them. He's a mighty smart chap."

"What did he harp on last night?" inquired Johnson.

"The Fifteen Gallon Law; and he showed how it would remove the evils of
intemperance, which he described so correctly and eloquently that I was
astonished. I don't see where he has ever learnt so much."

"Larnt it!" exclaimed Johnson; "he larnt it where he did his impudence.
I see that he has pulled the wool over your eyes, and you are more than
half timperance now."

[Illustration]

"All of that," replied Miles, coolly; "I am going to quit rum-selling at
once. If I can't get my living in an honest way, then I will go to the
poor-house."

"I hope you _will_ go there," answered Johnson, starting up from his
chair under great excitement. "A man who has no mind of his own ought to
go there. I----"

"I thought you was going to say," interrupted Miles, "that I ought to go
there to keep company with the paupers I have made. I am pretty sure I
should have you for a companion before long, if you don't alter your
hand."

"I never thought you was overstocked with brains," continued Johnson;
"but if you will be hoodwinked by that fool of a Nat, you have less than
I thought you had. It is great business for a man of your age to give up
beat to a boy, and that is all Nat is, though he thinks he's a man."

"Boy or not," answered Miles, "he spoke better last night than any man I
ever heard. He is a first-rate orator, and his defence of the 'Fifteen
Gallon Law' was unanswerable."

"A feller ought to speak well who has studied as much as he has," said
Johnson. "He hain't earnt his salt for two or three years, 'cause he's
too lazy to do any thing but look at a book."

"I don't care how much he has studied," answered Miles. "If I had a son
who could speak as wel