The rain-storm had brought this relief on a Thursday, and the skies did not clear till Friday evening. The air kept its freshness over Saturday and Sunday.
On the latter day, towards nightfall, I had taken my seat on the stoop, as is the custom of New-Yorkers kept in town during the summer months. I had brought out a cushion or two, and I was smoking my second after-supper cigar. I felt at peace with the world, and for the moment I had even dispensed with the necessity of thinking. It satisfied me to watch the rings of tobacco-smoke as they curled softly above my head.
Although I was thus detached from earth, I became at last vaguely conscious that a man had passed before the house for two or three times, and that as he passed he had stared at me as though he expected recognition. With his next return my attention was aroused. I saw that he was a tall, thin man, of perhaps fifty years of age, with a lean face clean-shaven, plainly dressed in black, and in what was obviously a Sunday suit, so revealing itself by its odd wrinkles and creases. As he came abreast of me, he slackened his gait and looked up. When he caught my eye he smiled. And then I recognized him at once. It was Professor Theophilus Briggs, the Solo Orchestra.
When he discovered that I knew him again he stood still. I rose to my feet and greeted him.
"I thought this was the house," he began, "but I wa'n't sure for certain. You see, my memory ain't any longer than a toad's tail. Still, I allowed I hadn't ought to disremember anything as big as a house—now had I?" and he laughed pleasantly. "And I thought that was you, too, setting up there on the porch," he went on, cheerfully. "And I'm glad it is, because I wanted to see you again to ask after the lady's health. Did she have her sleep out that evening? And how is she getting on now?"
I thanked him again for his considerate action the first time we had met, as well as for his kindly inquiries now, and I was glad to give him good news of our patient. Then I recognized the duties of hospitality, and I asked my visitor if he would not "take something."
"No, thank you," he returned—"that is, if there ain't no offence. Fact is, I've quit. I don't look on the wine when it is red now, for it biteth like an adder and it stingeth like a serpent, and I don't want any more snakes in mine. I've had enough of them, I have. Croton extra dry is good enough for me now, I guess; and I ain't no use now for a happy family of blue mice and green rats and yellow monkeys. I've had whole menageries of them, too, in my time—regular Greatest Show on Earth, you know, and me with a season ticket. But it's like all these continuous performances, you get tired of it pretty soon—leastways, I did, and so I quit, and I don't touch a drop now."
"Sworn off?" I suggested, as I made room for him on the cushion by my side.
"Oh no," he said, simply, as he sat down; "I hadn't no need to swear off. I just quit; that's all there was to it."
"Some men do not find it so very easy to give up drinking," I remarked.