The jailer glances about him for assistance, saying it will be necessary to get him up and carry him to his cell.

“To a cell-a cell-a cell!” reiterates the inebriate.  “Well, as the legal gentry say,” he continues, “I’ll enter a ‘non-contender.’  I only say this by way of implication, to show my love for the fellow who gathers fees by making out writs on my account.”

In reply to a question from the jailer, he says they mistake Tom Swiggs, if they think he has no pride left.

“After all, there’s something more in you than I thought, Tom.  Give us your hand,” says the vote-cribber, extending cordially his hand, as if a change for the better had come over him, and grasping firmly that of the inebriate.  Raising his besotted head, Tom gazes distrustfully at the cribber, as if questioning his sincerity.  “I am not dead to shame,” he mutters, struggling at the same time to suppress his emotions.

“There are, Tom,” continues the cribber, playfully, “two claims on you-two patent claims! (He lets go the inebriate’s hand, and begins teasing his long, red beard.) And, are you disposed to come out on the square, in the liquor line, you may redeem yourself—­”

“Name ’em!” interposed Tom, stopping short in his tune.

“The gentleman commonly called Mister Jones, and a soap-chandler, are contesting a claim upon you.  The one wants your body, the other your clothes.  Now, as I am something of a lawyer, having had large dealings in elections, I may say, as a friend, that it is only a question of time, so far as you are concerned.  Take my advice, then, and cheat both, by selling out, in advance.  The student and the janitor pay good prices for such things as you.  Give the last-named worthy a respondentia bond on yourself, redeemable before death, or resign the body after, (any lawyer will make the lien valid,) and the advance will produce floods of whiskey.  Come out, Tom, like a hero, on the square.”

An outcast, hurled deep into the gulf of despair, and surrounded by victims of poverty and votaries of crime, the poor inebriate has yet left him one lingering spark of pride.  As if somewhat revived, he scrambles to his feet, staggers into the room of a poor debtor, on the left of the long, sombre aisle, and drawing from his pocket a ten-cent piece, throws it upon the table, with an air of great importance.

“I am not moneyless,” he exclaims—­“not I!” and he staggers to the great chimney-place, rebounding to the floor, saying, “Take that-bring her in-quench my burning thirst!”

Tom is the only surviving, and now the outcast, member of a somewhat respectable family, that has moved in the better walks of society.  His mother, being scrupulous of her position in society, and singularly proud withal, has reared and educated her son in idleness, and ultimately slights and discards him, because he, as she alleges, sought society inferior to his position and her dignity.  In his better days he had been erect of person, and even handsome; but the thraldom of the destroyer has brought him to the dust, a pitiable wreck.