This book is meant by the author to be a startling cry of “Danger!” Different from “The man-Trap,” as dealing with another aspect of the temperance question, its pictures are wholly unlike those presented in that book, but none the less vivid or intense.  It is given as an argument against what is called the temperate use of liquor, and as an exhibition of the fearful disasters that flow from our social drinking customs.  In making this argument and exhibition the author has given his best effort to the work.

WOUNDED IN THE HOUSE OF A FRIEND.

CHAPTER I.

Snow had been falling for more than three hours, the large flakes dropping silently through the still air until the earth was covered with an even carpet many inches in depth.

It was past midnight.  The air, which had been so still, was growing restless and beginning to whirl the snow into eddies and drive it about in an angry kind of way, whistling around sharp corners and rattling every loose sign and shutter upon which it could lay its invisible hands.

In front of an elegant residence stood half a dozen carriages.  The glare of light from hall and windows and the sound of music and dancing told of a festival within.  The door opened, and a group of young girls, wrapped in shawls and waterproofs, came out and ran, merrily laughing, across the snow-covered pavement, and crowding into one of the carriages, were driven off at a rapid speed.  Following them came a young man on whose lip and cheeks the downy beard had scarcely thrown a shadow.  The strong light of the vestibule lamp fell upon a handsome face, but it wore an unnatural flush.

There was an unsteadiness about his movements as he descended the marble steps, and he grasped the iron railing like one in danger of falling.  A waiter who had followed him to the door stood looking at him with a half-pitying, half-amused expression on his face as he went off, staggering through the blinding drift.

The storm was one of the fiercest of the season, and the air since midnight had become intensely cold.  The snow fell no longer in soft and filmy flakes, but in small hard pellets that cut like sand and sifted in through every crack and crevice against which the wild winds drove it.

The young man—­boy, we might better say, for, he was only nineteen—­moved off in the very teeth of this storm, the small granules of ice smiting him in the face and taking his breath.  The wind set itself against him with wide obstructing arms, and he reeled, staggered and plunged forward or from side to side, in a sort of blind desperation.