The Rum-Seller's Dream - Page 2

But 'spose we try and get a live snake."

"That won't do."

"Why not?"

"A live snake is no great curiosity."

"Yes, but you know we could call it some outlandish name; or say that it was dug up fifty feet below the ground, out of a solid rock, and was now all alive and doin' well."

"It wouldn't do, Sandy."

"Now I think it would, prime."

"It might if these temperance folks were not so confounded thick about here, interfering with a man and preventing him making an honest living. If it wasn't for them, I should be clearing five or ten dollars a day, as easy as nothing."

"Confound them! I say," was Sandy's hearty response; while he clenched his fist, and ground his teeth together. "If I had a rope round the necks of every mother's son of 'em, wouldn't I serve 'em as old Julus Cesar did the Hottentots? Wouldn't I though! But what could they say or do about it, Mr. Graves."

"They'd pretty quick put it on to us in their temperance papers about the good device we had. They'd talk pretty fast about the serpent that seduced Eve, and all that. No, blast 'em! A snake won't do, Sandy."

"How will a monkey do?"

"A monkey might answer, if he was a little cuter than common. But we can't get one handy."

"Try a band of music."

"That would soon wear out; and then we should have to get up something else, and the people would suspect us of trying to gull them."

"Then what is to be done, Mr. Graves? We can never stand it at this rate."

"I'm sure I don't know." And the rum-seller leaned upon his bar, and looked quite sad and dejected.

"I wonder what has become of Bill Riley?" he at length asked, rising up with a sigh. "He hasn't been here for a week."

"Dick Hilton told me to-day that he believed he had joined the teetotallers."

"I feared as much. He was one of my very best customers; worth a clear dollar and a half a week to me, above the cost of the liquors, the year round. And Tom Jones? Where can he be?"

"Gone, too."

"Tom Jones?" in surprise.

"It's a fact. They got him on the same night Bill Riley was caught."

"Foolish fellow, to go and throw himself away in that style! Them temperance men will get from him every dollar he can earn, to build Temperance Halls, and get up processions, and buy clothes for lazy, loafing vagabonds, that had a great sight better be sent to the poorhouse. It is too bad. My very blood boils when I think what fools men are."

"And there's Harry Peters,--Dick Hilton told me that he'd gone, too."

"Not Harry Peters, surely!"