"It is a legal business," he said.
"Legal? Yes, legal—but you have sense enough to know that if it is legal for you to sell, it must be legal for some other fellow to buy; and if some other fellow spends his money for liquor he had the right to drink it, and you can hardly be unreasonable enough to hold a man responsible for what he does when the lining has been eaten out of his stomach and his brain soaked with alcohol. Such a man is a legal murderer, and the custom that breeds him should take care of the finished production.
"Mind you, I am not giving a temperance lecture; that is out of my line. But it has always seemed to me to be a rotten sort of justice that hangs a man for doing what the government gives him a license to do."
Mr. Allison looked up suddenly.
"Do you suppose, Sammie, that Deacon Brown knows the Traffic as it is—as we have seen it?"
"His church machinery grinds out resolutions annually of such a warlike nature that I am inclined to believe he does," said the doctor grimly.
"He has been in every political caucus that I have, for the last five years and has voted as I have from constable to President. I have voted for the interests of the Trade. What has he been voting for?" demanded Allison.
"I'll give it up," said Sammie, dusting the ashes from the end of his cigar; "but the Lord have mercy on his brains if he thinks it has been for 'temperance and morality.'"
Gilbert Allison arose and began a measured tread up and down the room.
"Laugh some more, Sammie! I have not yet recovered my normal condition. I had as soon be dead as morbid. Laugh. Perhaps it will prove infectious."