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288 for me, and say—'Come, Sam, let's take something.' So you see, for a body such as I am, there isn't much help for it."

"But ain't you afraid to go on in this way? Don't you know where it will all end?"

"Just as well as anybody. It will make an end of me—or of all that is good in me. Rum and ruin, you know, sir. They go together like twin brothers."

"Why don't you get out of the way of temptation?" said I.

"It's easy enough to ask that question, sir; but how am I to get out of the way of temptation? Where shall I go, and not find a bar in my road, and somebody to say—'Come, Sam, let's take a drink?' It can't be done, sir, nohow. I'm a hostler, and don't know how to be any thing else."

"Can't you work on a farm?"

"Yes; I can do something in that way. But, when there are taverns and bar-rooms, as many as three or four in every mile all over