all to no purpose.  The wife, by working for the clothing stores, had earned and saved about three hundred dollars.  The love of money, in the slow process of accumulation, had been awakened; and, in ministering to the depraved appetites of men who loved drink and neglected their families, she saw a quicker mode of acquiring the gold she coveted.  And so the dram-shop was opened.  And what was the result?  The husband quit going to church.  He had no heart for that; for, even on the Sabbath day, the fiery stream was stayed not in his house.  Next he began to tipple.  Soon, alas! the subtle poison so pervaded his system that morbid desire came; and then he moved along quick-footed in the way of ruin.  In less than three years, I think, from the time the grog-shop was opened by his wife, he was in a drunkard’s grave.  A year or two more, and the pit that was digged for others by the hands of the wife, she fell into herself.  After breathing an atmosphere poisoned by the fumes of liquor, the love of tasting it was gradually formed, and she, too, in the end, became a slave to the Demon Drink.  She died at last, poor as a beggar in the street.  Ah! this liquor-selling is the way to ruin; and they who open the gates, as well as those who enter the downward path, alike go to destruction.  But this is digressing.

After Joe Morgan and his wife left the “Sickle and Sheaf,” with that gentle child, who, as I afterward learned, had not, for a year or more, laid her little head to sleep until her father returned home and who, if he stayed out beyond a certain hour, would go for him, and lead him back, a very angel of love and patience—­I re-entered the bar-room, to see how life was passing there.  Not one of all I had left in the room remained.  The incident which had occurred was of so painful a nature, that no further unalloyed pleasure was to be had there during the evening, and so each had retired.  In his little kingdom the landlord sat alone, his head resting on his hand, and his face shaded from the light.  The whole aspect of the man was that of one in self-humiliation.  As I entered he raised his head, and turned his face toward me.  Its expression was painful.

“Rather an unfortunate affair,” said he.  “I’m angry with myself, and sorry for the poor child.  But she’d no business here.  As for Joe Morgan, it would take a saint to bear his tongue when once set a-going by liquor.  I wish he’d stay away from the house.  Nobody wants his company.  Oh, dear!”

The ejaculation, or rather groan, that closed the sentence showed how little Slade was satisfied with himself, notwithstanding this feeble attempt at self-justification.

“His thirst for liquor draws him hither,” I remarked.  “The attraction of your bar to his appetite is like that of the magnet to the needle.  He cannot stay away.”

“He must stay away!” exclaimed the landlord, with some vehemence of tone, striking his fist upon the table by which he sat.  “He must stay away!  There is scarcely an evening that he does not ruffle my temper, and mar good feelings in all the company.  Just see what he provoked me to do this evening.  I might have killed the child.  It makes my blood run cold to think of it!  Yes, sir—­he must stay away.  If no better can be done, I’ll hire a man to stand at the door and keep him out.”