the difficult and
complex subject of temperance, by which he meant total abstinence. He
informed his hearers, "in the bigoted tones of a married teetotaler,"
that he had gone to the root of the matter--the roots were apparently on
the surface--and that it was no use calling black white and white black.
He for one did not believe in muddling up black and white, as some
lukewarm people advocated, till they were only a dirty gray. No; either
drink was right or it was wrong. If it was not wrong to get drunk, he
did not know what was wrong. He was not a man of compromise. Alcohol was
a servant of the devil, and to tamper with it was to tamper with the
Evil One himself. Touch not. Taste not. Handle not. He for his part
should never side with the devil.

This lofty utterance having been given time to sink in, Mr. Gresley
looked round at the sea of stolid, sullen faces, and concluded with
saying that the chairman would now call upon his cousin, Mr. Vernon, to
speak to them on the shocking evils he himself had witnessed in
Australia as the results of drink.

Dick was not troubled by shyness. He extricated himself from his seat
with the help of the young men, and slowly ascended the platform. He
looked a size too large for it, and for the other speakers, and his
loose tweed suit and heather stockings were as great a contrast to the
tightly buttoned-up black of the other occupants as were his strong,
keen face and muscular hands to those of the previous speakers.

"That's a man," said a masculine voice behind Rachel. "He worn't reared
on ditch-water, you bet."

"Mr. Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen," said Dick. "You've only got to
listen to me for half a minute, and you'll find out without my telling
you that Nature did not cut me out for a speaker. I'm no talker. I'm a
workingman"--an admission which Mr. Pratt would rather have been boiled
in his own oil than have made. "For the last seven years I've done my
twelve hours a day, and I've come to think more of what a man gets
through with his hands than the sentiments which he can wheeze out after
a heavy meal. But Mr. Gresley has asked me to tell you what I know about
drink, as I have seen a good many samples of it in Australia."

Dick then proceeded, with a sublime disregard of grammar, and an
earnestness that increased as he went on, to dilate on the evil effects
of drink as he himself had witnessed them. He described how he had seen
men who could not get spirits make the