The tavern-keeper did not tell all that was in his mind.  He said nothing of his dream, nor of that horrible idea of going to the rum-seller’s hell, and becoming a devil, filled with the delight of rendering mankind wretched by deluging the land with drunkenness.

“What are you going to do then?” asked Sandy.

“Why, the first thing is to quit rum-selling.”

“But what then?”

“I’m not decided yet;—­but shall enter into some kind of business that I can follow with a clear conscience.”

“You’ll sell out this stands I suppose.  The goodwill is worth three or four hundred dollars.”

“No, Sandy, I will not!” was the tavern-keeper’s positive, half indignant reply.  “I’ll have nothing more to do with the gain of rum-selling.  I have too much of that sin on my conscience already.”

“Somebody will come right in, as soon as you move out.  And I don’t see why you should give any one such an advantage for nothing.”

“I’m not going to move out, Sandy.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Why, one thing—­I’m going to shut up this devil’s man-trap.  And while I can keep possession of the property, it shall never be opened as a dram-shop again.”

“What are you going to do with your liquors, Mr. Graves?  Sell ’em?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“Burn ’em.  Or let ’em run in the gutter.”

“That I should call a piece of folly.”

“You may call it what you please.  But I’ll do it notwithstanding.  I’ve received my last dollar for rum.  Not another would I touch for all the world!”

A slight shudder passed through the tavern-keeper’s body, as he said this, occasioned by the vivid recollection of some fearful passage in his late dream.

“You’d better give the liquors to me, Mr. Graves.  It would be a downright sin to throw ’em in the gutter, when a fellow might make a good living out of ’em.”

“No, Sandy.  Neither you nor anybody else shall ever make a man drunk with the liquor now in this house.  It shall run in the gutter.  That’s settled!”

When the sun arose next morning, Harmony House was shorn of its attractions as a drinking establishment.  All the signs, with their deceptive and alluring devices, were taken down—­the shutters closed, and everything indicating its late use removed, excepting a strong smell of liquor, great quantities of which had been poured into the gutters.

In the course of a few weeks, the house was again re-opened as a hatter-shop, Mr. Graves having resumed his former honest business, which he still follows, well patronized by the temperance men, among whom are Joseph Randolph, and William Riley, the former reclaimed through his active instrumentality.

HOW TO CURE A TOPER.

[THE following story, literally true in its leading particulars, was told by a reformed man, who knew W—­very well.  In repeating it, I do so in the first person, in order to give it more effect.]