ded on good
authority. Who told you?"

"Our new parson told me, and he is in my opinion a good authority,
because he is a Christian, if ever a man was; and he is an elderly man,
besides being uncommonly clever and well informed. He told us a great
many strong facts at the temperance meeting we held last night. I wish
you had been there, Miles. It would have warmed your heart, I think."

"Have you joined them, Willie?"

"Yes, I have; and, God helping me, I mean to stick by them!"

"I would have gone to the meeting myself," said Miles thoughtfully, "if
I had been asked."

"Strange," returned Armstrong, "that Sergeant Hardy said to me he
thought of asking you to accompany us, but had an idea that you wouldn't
care to go. Now, just look at that lot there beside the grog-shop door.
What a commentary on the evils of drink!"

The lot to which he referred consisted of a group of miserable loungers
in filthy garments and fez-caps, who, in monkey-like excitement, or
solemn stupidity, stood squabbling in front of one of the many Greek
drinking-shops, with which the town was cursed.

Passing by at the moment, with the stately contempt engendered by a
splendid physique and a red coat, strode a trooper--one of the defenders
of the town. His gait was steady enough, but there was that
unmistakable something in the expression of his face which told that he
was in the grip of the same fiend that had captured the men round the
grog-shop door. He was well-known to both Armstrong and Miles.

"Hallo! Johnson," cried the latter. "Is there any truth in the--"

He stopped, and looked steadily in the trooper's eyes without speaking.

"Oh yes, I know what you mean," said Johnson, with a reckless air. "I
know that I'm drunk."

"I wouldn't say exactly that of you," returned Miles; "but--"

"Well, well, I say it of myself," continued the trooper. "It's no use
humbuggin' about it. I'm swimmin' wi' the current. Goin' to the dogs
like a runaway locomotive. Of course I see well enough that men like
Sergeant Hardy, an' Stevenson of the Marines, who have been temperance
men all their lives, enjoy good health--would to God I was like 'em!
And I know that drinkers are dyin' off like sheep, but that makes it all
the worse for me, for, to tell you the honest truth, boys--an' I don't
care who knows it--I _can't_ leave off drinkin'. It's killin' me by
inches. I know, likewise, that all the old hard drinkers here are soon
sent home