In the Sweet Dry and Dry

As far as this book is concerned, the public may Take It, or the public may Let It Alone. But the authors feel it their duty to say that no deductions as to their own private habits are to be made from the story here offered. With its composition they have beguiled the moments of the valley of the shadow.
Acknowledgement should be made to the Evening Public Ledger of Philadelphia for permission to reprint the ditty included in Chapter VI.
The public will forgive this being only a brief preface, for at the moment of writing the time is short. Wishing you a Merry Abstinence, and looking forward to meeting you some day in Europe,
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, BART HALEY. Philadelphia, Ten minutes before Midnight, June 30, 1919.

Dunraven Bleak, the managing editor of The Evening Balloon, sat at his desk in the center of the local-room, under a furious cone of electric light. It was six o'clock of a warm summer afternoon: he was filling his pipe and turning over the pages of the Final edition of the paper, which had just come up from the press-room. After the turmoil of the day the room had quieted, most of the reporters had left, and the shaded lamps shone upon empty tables and a floor strewn ankle-deep with papers. Nearby sat the city editor, checking over the list of assignments for the next morning. From an adjoining kennel issued occasional deep groans and a strong whiff of savage shag tobacco, blown outward by the droning gust of an electric fan. These proved that the cartoonist (a man whose sprightly drawings were born to an obbligato of vehement blasphemy) was at work within.
Mr. Bleak was just beginning to recuperate from the incessant vigilance of the day's work. There was an unconscious pathos in his lean, desiccated figure as he rose and crossed the room to the green glass drinking-fountain. After the custom of experienced newspapermen, he rapidly twirled a makeshift cup out of a sheet of copy paper. He poured himself a draught of clear but rather tepid water, and drank it without noticeable relish. His lifted head betrayed only the automatic thankfulness of the domestic fowl. There had been a time when six o'clock meant something better than a paper goblet of lukewarm filtration.