, sung, 'We won't go home till morning' I
stopped in front of the ice water tank, and said, 'Grand Worthy Duke, I
bring before you a pilgrim who has drank of the dregs until his stomach
won't hold water, and who desires to swear off.' The Grand Mogul asked me
if he was worthy and well qualified, and I told him that he had been drunk
more or less since the reunion last summer, which ought to qualify him.
Then the Grand Mogul made Pa repeat the most blood-curdling oath, in which
Pa agreed, if he ever drank another drop, to allow anybody to pull his
toe-nails out with tweezers, to have his liver dug out and fed to dogs,
his head chopped off, and his eyes removed. Then the Mogul said he would
brand the candidate on the bare back with the initial letters of our
order, 'G.T.,' that all might read how a brand had been snatched from the
burning. You'd a dide to see Pa flinch when I pulled up his shirt, and got
ready to brand him.

"My chum got a piece of ice out of the water cooler, and just as he
clapped it on Pa's back I burned a piece of horses hoof in the candle, and
held it to Pa's nose, and I guess Pa actually thought it was his burning
skin that he smelled. He jumped about six feet and said, 'Great heavens,
what you dewin,' and then he began to roll over a barrel which I had
arranged for him. Pa thought he was going down cellar, and he hung to the
barrel, but he was on top half the time. When Pa and the barrel got
through fighting I was beside him, and I said, 'Calm yourself, and be
prepared for the ordeal that is to follow.' Pa asked how much of this dum
fooling there was, and said he was sorry he joined. He said he could let
licker alone without having the skin all burned off his back. I told Pa to
be brave and not weaken, and all would-be well. He wiped the prespiration
off his face on the end of his shirt, and we put a belt around his body
and hitched it to a tackle, and pulled him up so his feet just
off the floor, and then we talked as though we were away off, and I told
my chum to look out that Pa did not hit the gas fixtures, and Pa actually
thought he was being hauled clear up to the roof. I could see he was
scared by the complexion of his hands and feet, as they clawed the air. He
actually sweat so the drops fell on the floor. Bime-by we let him down,
and he was awfully relieved though his feet were not more than two inches
from the floor any of the time. We were just going to slip Pa down a board
with slivers i