oes to
our feet? It's because the drink has took all."

"It's not the drink," screamed Alice, her eyes flashing with rage.
"You've nothing to blame the drink for; the drink's right enough. It's
yourself; it's your own fault. You haven't any conduct in your drink
like other folk. You must sit sotting at the `George' till you can't
tell your hand from your foot; and then you must come home and
blackguard me and the childer, and turn the house out of the windows.
You've driven our Sammul out of the country; and you'll be the death of
our Betty, and of me too, afore you've done."

"Death of you!" shouted her husband, in a voice as loud as her own.
"And what odds then? No conduct in _my_ drink! And what have _you_ had
in yourn? What's there to make a man tarry by the hearth-stone in such
a house as this, where there's nothing to look at but waste and want? I
wish every drop of the drink were in the flames with this." So saying,
he seized the jug, threw the little that was left of the spirits in it
into the fire, and, without stopping to listen to the torrent of abuse
which poured from the lips of his wife, hurried out of the house. And
whither did he go? Where strong habit led him, almost without his being
conscious of it--he was soon within the doors of the "George." By this
time his anger had cooled down, and he sat back from the rest of the
company on an empty bench. The landlord's eye soon spied him.

"What are you for to-night, Thomas?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Johnson, moodily; "I'm better with nothing, I
think."

"No, no," said the other; "you're none of that sort. You look very
down; a pint of ale'll be just the very thing to set you right."

Johnson took the ale.

"Didn't I see you coming out of Ned Brierley's?" asked one of the
drinkers.

"Well, and what then?" asked Johnson, fiercely.

"Oh, nothing; only I thought, maybe, that you were for coming out in the
teetottal line. Ay, wouldn't that be a rare game?"

A roar of laughter followed this speech. But Johnson's blood was up.

"And why shouldn't I join the teetottallers if I've a mind?" he cried.
"I don't see what good the drink's done to me nor mine. And as for Ned
Brierley, he's a gradely Christian. I've given him nothing afore but
foul words; but I'll give him no more."

A fresh burst of merriment followed these words.

"Eh, see," cried one, "here's the parson come among us."

"He'll be getting his blue coat with brass