ack, the only true way. Tapering off is not what
it is cracked up to be. It is very hazardous; for it keeps up
excitement, and the taste of the liquor hangs about the palate. Don't
you remember Ben Hawser, one of the best maintopmen of the Alert--he who
saved the first Luff from drowning at Port Mahon, when he fell overboard
from the cutter?

JACK. Surely I do, Tom. Do you suppose I could forget such a
noble-hearted fellow as Ben Hawser--as fine a fellow as ever laid out
upon a yard, or stood at the wheel; and such a firstrate marlinespike
seaman in the bargain? No, indeed.

TOM. You are right, Jack. He was a noble fellow, and a thorough seaman.
There was nothing of the lubber about poor Ben: always the first man at
his duty, and ready to share his last copper with a fellow-mortal in
distress, whether seaman or landsman. Well, Ben once got into a great
frolic ashore, and kicked up such a bobbery that the watchman clapped
him in limbo for the night; and the justice next morning gave him such a
clapper-clawing with his tongue, and bore down upon him so hard with his
_reprimands_, as I think the lawyers call it, and raked him so severely
fore and aft with his good advice, to wind up with, that Ben felt pretty
sheepish; and, as he told us afterwards, didn't know whether he was on
his head or his heels--on the truck, or on the keelson. He felt so sore
about it, and so much ashamed of himself, that he did not touch a drop
for six weeks. He then thought he would take it _moderately_ just enough
to keep the steam up--or, as some folks say, he thought he would be a
_temperate drinker_. O, Jack, that _temperate drinking_ is a famous net
of old Satan's to catch fools in. Your temperate drinker treads on
slippery ground; for as I verily believe that alcohol is one of the most
active imps for the destruction of both body and soul, the temperate
drinker is too often gradually led on by the fiend, until the habit
becomes fixed and inveterate; and he drags a galling chain, each day
riveted more strongly, and the poor wretch hourly becomes more callous
to shame, until he sinks into the grave--_the drunkard's grave_.

JACK. But, Tom, you don't mean to say that poor Ben's reel has been run
off in that style, do you?

TOM. Indeed, Jack, it is true, and sorry am I that it is so. Yes, I
followed the worn-out hulk of Ben Hawser to the dark and silent grave a
fortnight ago. He slipped his cable in the prime of life; and all along
of _tempe