“Gone, too.”

“Tom Jones?” in surprise.

“It’s a fact.  They got him on the same night Bill Riley was caught.”

“Foolish fellow, to go and throw himself away in that style!  Them temperance men will get from him every dollar he can earn, to build Temperance Halls, and get up processions, and buy clothes for lazy, loafing vagabonds, that had a great sight better be sent to the poorhouse.  It is too bad.  My very blood boils when I think what fools men are.”

“And there’s Harry Peters,—­Dick Hilton told me that he’d gone, too.”

“Not Harry Peters, surely!”

“Yes.  He hasn’t been near our house for several days.

“Well, something must be done to get up a new set of customers, or we are gone.  We must invent some new drink.”

“What shall it be?”

“O, that’s no consequence.  The name must be taking.”

“Have you thought of one?”

“No, Can’t you think of something?”

“Well—­Let me see.  But I’m sure I don’t know what would do.”

“What do you think of ‘Bank Stock?’ That would attract attention.”

“I can’t say that I like it.”

“Or ‘Greasers?’”

“Most too vulgar.”

“So I think myself.  Suppose we call it a ‘Mummy?’”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t go.  It ought to have ‘Imperial,’ or ‘Nectar,’ or something like that about it.”

“O, yes, I see your notion.  But they’ve all been used up long ago.  It must be some entirely new name, which, at the same time, will hit a popular idea.  As ‘Tariff,’ or ‘Compromise.’”

“I see now.  Well, can’t you hammer out something?”

“I must try.  Let me see.  How will ‘Sub-Treasury’ do?”

“Capital!  ‘Graves’ Sub-Treasury’ will be just the thing.  You see, the young-fellows will say—­’Why, what kind of a new drink is this they’ve been getting up, down at the Harmony House?’

“‘I don’t know—­What is it?’

“‘The Sub-Treasury, they call it.’

“‘Have you tried it yet?’

“‘No.’

“’Well, come, let’s give him a call.  Novelty, you know, is the order of the day.’

“That’s the way these matters work, Mr. Graves.  But how are you going to make it?”

“I’ve not thought of that.  But anything will do.  Liquor tastes good to ’em any way you choose to fix it.”

“True enough.  You can leave that part to me.  I’ll hatch up something that will tickle as it goes down, and make ’em wish their throats were a mile long, that they might taste it all the way.”

“Have you tried Graves’ new drink yet, Joe?” asked one young man of another, a day or two after the conversation just noted took place.

“No.—­What is it?”

“Sub-Treasury.”

“Sub-Treasury?  That must be something new.  I wonder what it is?”

“I’ve just been wondering the same thing.  Suppose we go down and try it.”