Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/134

 "And what do you suppose his remedy was? Trading-stamps. Now don't look sceptical; remember, you can't strangle veneered vice with crude brute force. Tell a man he shall not drink kerosene, and he'll boom John R.'s game by breaking into storehouses and licking up a quart of that same article. And I reckon a man is never seized with an insane desire to take a drink in a prohibition State, eh? But, you see, Tib's way was to make virtue so attractive that, like Scrubine and other washing confections, you simply had to have it to be happy.

"Well, we reached Dawson, and had found our stock of joy-paper was fading away, with no indication of a diamond-hiked existence to cheer us on, before the psychological moment arrived for Tib to play the rôle of Moral Cleanser. I was for rushing into the wild-wood and tearing up alder bushes in a mad search for a golden reprieve, while the old chap was hinting I plight my troth with a Digger Indian princess, encumbered by several million dollars' worth of furs, and take him home to a chimney-corner of ease and baked dog. Naturally I complained of his grim humor, and to accentuate our position shook two meagre coins in his wasting face, and reminded him we had arrived at the point when snow-balls would taste good.

"As I was trying to recall him to a sense of our