Page:Ten Nights in a Bar room.pdf/318

306 and out upon the porch, to get a draught of pure air.

Slade still sat leaning against the wall.

"Fine day this," said he, speaking in a mumbling kind of voice.

"Very fine," I answered.

"Yes, very fine."

"Not doing so well as you were a few years ago," said I.

"No—you see—these—these 'ere blamed temperance people are ruining every thing."

"Ah! Is that so?"

"Yes. Cedarville isn't what it was when you first came to the 'Sickle and Sheaf.' I—I—you see. Curse the temperance people! They've ruined every thing, you see. Every thing! Ruined"

And he muttered, and mouthed his words in such a way, that I could understand but little he said; and, in that little, there was scarcely any coherency. So I left him, with a feeling of pity in my heart for the wreck he had be