Another, who understood the reason of this refusal, observing it, remarked—­

“Our friend Marshall belongs to the tee-totallers.”

“Ah, indeed!  Then we must, of course, excuse him,” was the gentlemanly response.

“Don’t you think, Marshall,” remarked another, “that you temperance men are a little too rigid in your entire proscription of wine?”

“For the reformed drinker,” was the reply, “it is thought to be the safest way to cut off entirely everything that can, by possibility, inflame the appetite.  Some argue, that when that morbid craving, which the drunkard acquires, is once formed, it never can be thoroughly eradicated.”

“Do you think the position a true one?” asked a member of the party.

“I have my doubts of it,” Marshall said.  “For instance:  Most of you know that for some years I indulged to excess in drink.  Two years ago I abandoned the use of wine, brandy, and everything else of an intoxicating nature.  For a time, I felt the cravings of an intense desire for liquor; but my pledge of total abstinence restrained me from any indulgence.  Gradually, the influence of my old appetite subsided, until it ceased to be felt.  And it is now more than a year since I have experienced the slightest inclination to touch a drop.  Your wine and brandy are now, gentlemen, no temptation to me.”

“But if that be the case,” urged a friend, “why need you restrict yourself, so rigidly, from joining in a social glass?  Standing, as you evidently do, upon the ground you occupied, before, by a too free indulgence, you passed, unfortunately, the point of self-control:  you may now enjoy the good things of life without abusing them.  Your former painful experience will guard you in that respect.”

“I am not free to do so,” replied Marshall.

“Why?”

“Because I have pledged myself never again to drink anything that can intoxicate, and confirmed that pledge by my sign-manual—­thus giving it a double force and importance.”

“What end had you in view in making that pledge?”

“The emancipation of myself from the horrible bondage in which I had been held for years.”

“That end is accomplished.”

“True.  But the obligations of my pledge are perpetual.”

“That is a mere figure of speech.  You fully believed, I suppose, that perpetual total-abstinence was absolutely necessary for your safety?”

“I certainly did.”

“You do not believe so now?”

“No.  I have seen reason, I think, to change my views in that respect.  The appetite which I believed would remain throughout life, and need the force of a solemn bond to restrain it, has, under the rigid discipline of two years, been destroyed.  I now feel myself as much above the enslaving effects of intoxicating liquors, as I ever did in my life.”

“Then, it is clear to my mind, that all the obligations of your pledge are fulfilled; and that, as a matter of course, it ceases to be binding.”