ounter and, resting one foot upon
the rail near the floor with a redeeming unfamiliarity, responded to the
inquiry of the barman by admitting that he felt a "wee bit blue."

This statement led to the revelation that the barman was similarly
affected, and was engaged, at that moment, in the preparation of a
famous antidote greatly in demand by sundry newsgatherers and night
editors in Park Row.

Dennis watched him with interest and remarked that he set out two
glasses, after the manner of those who are about to compound an
effervescent.

Such, however, was not the case, and Dennis was startled presently to
see the barman, after filling both glasses with a decoction which caught
the light from a dozen merry angles, push one of them in his direction
with the companionable suggestion: "Have one with me."

Only once before had Dennis indulged in anything of a stimulating
nature, and the effect upon his head the next morning had been
sufficient to discourage its repetition, and he informed the barman of
this disagreeable feature.

"Oh!" protested that insinuating Mephisto as he held his glass to the
light the better to concentrate its hypnotic gleam and sparkle upon the
vacillating youth, "there is no headache in this; this is a man's
medicine. Get it down; it will do you good."

Persuaded by the example before him, duped by his depressions, and weary
of his loneliness, Dennis responded to the dubious suggestion with the
guilty haste of one who has decided to let down the moral bars for a
short but sufficient interval.

Palliated from its original rawness by the additions of the barman, the
draught was without special bite or pungency in its passage down his
throat, and Dennis was aware of his indiscretion only by an increasing
glow in the pit of his stomach and a disposition to credit the barman
with a degree of amiability beyond that ordinarily manifested by this
functionary.

The potation, however, had done its work but partially; there remained
the itch of something still to be desired, an elevation yet unattained,
and Dennis saw no other way up the sheer height than by an appeal to the
barman to duplicate his initial effort.

When this had joined its fluent fellows in their several midsts, Dennis
was inexperienced enough to accept, as a matter of course, the genial
disposition toward the world in general which replaced the depression of
the morning.

A native eloquence, long disused, began to urge him to a s