Quimbleton spoke with anguished remorse.

“Mrs. Bleak is right.  I’ve been trying to hide it from myself, but I can do so no longer.  This monkey business—­what we might call this gorilla warfare—­must stop.  We will only land in front of a firing squad.  I have only one idea, which I have been saving in case all else failed.”

The Bleaks were too discouraged to comment, but Theodolinda smiled bravely.

“Virgil dear,” she said, “your ideas are always so original.  What is it?”

Quimbleton stood up, unconsciously putting one foot on the portable brass rail which rested on its six-inch legs by the roadside.  His tired eyes shone anew with characteristic enthusiasm.  It was plain that he imagined himself before a large and sympathetic audience.

“My friends,” he said, “the secret of eloquence is to know your facts—­or, as the all-powerful Chuff would amend it, to know your tracts.  One fact, I think I may say, is plain.  The jig is up, or (more literally), the jag is up.  I can see now that alcohol will never be more than a memory.  Principalities and powers are in league against us.  If the malt has lost its favor, wherewith shall it be malted?”

He paused a moment, as though expecting a little applause, and Theodolinda murmured an encouraging “Here, here.”

With rekindled eye he resumed.

“Alcohol, I say, will never be more than a memory.  Yet even a memory must be kept alive.  The great tradition must not die.  For the very sake of antiquarian accuracy, for the instruction of posterity, some exact record must be kept of the influence of alcohol upon the human soul.  How can this be preserved?  Not in books, not in the dead mummies of a museum.  No, not in dead mummies, indeed, but in living rummies.  That brings me to my great idea, which I have long cherished.

“I propose, my dear friends, that in some appropriate shrine, surrounded by all the authentic trappings and utensils, some chosen individual be maintained at the public charge, to exhibit for the contemplation of a drouthing world the immortal flame of intoxication.  He will be known, without soft concealments, as the Perpetual Souse.  In his little bar, served by austere attendants, he will be kept in a state of gentle exhilaration.  Nothing gross, nothing unseemly, I insist!  In that state of sweetly glowing mind and heart, in that ineffable blossoming of all the nobler qualities of human dignity, this priest of alcohol will represent and perpetuate the virtues of the grape.  Booze, in the general sense, will have gone West, but ah how fair and ruddy a sunset will it have in the person of this its vicar!  There he will live, visited, studied, revered, a living memorial.  There he will live, perpetually in a mellow fume of bliss, trailing clouds of glory, as if—­as some poet says,

    As if his whole vocation
    Were endless intoxication.