Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/446

334 evening Jim and Johnnie both got loads that they ought to have gone after about nine times, if they just had to pack them, and the result was that it was my busy day keeping them out of the calaboose. I promised the police I would put them to bed and make them stay there until morning.

Next morning, the first thing after we had dressed, Jim said: "Well boys, let's go and have a Christmas drink." I said: "Boys, I will take one drink with you and then quit. Now if you fellows want to make brutes of yourselves and get into the lock-up, just go ahead, but I am going to go home as soon as I get my breakfast." So we went down the street and into the first saloon we came to and called for egg-nogg. I remained with them until they were drinking their fifth drink. I could not do anything with them, so I told them I was going to breakfast, and they could do as they pleased. This was the first time in my life that I had ever been placed in a position where I was actually ashamed of my associates. I was so disgusted when I left them that morning to go to my breakfast that I thought I would go home and leave them. But after eating my breakfast, being, perhaps, in a better humor, I started out to hunt for them. I do not wish to try for a moment to lead the reader to believe that I do not like the taste of liquor, for I am confident at that time I really liked it better than either of my associates, but I always despise the effect, and that seemed to be what they, like thousands of other, drink it for. It always seemed to me that when a man is drunk he is more disposed to show the brute that is in him than to act a gentleman.