"Did ye ever see them, Mickey?"
"See thim? Haven't I seen thim, and if you drink enough of the stuff ye'll see thim too."
The laugh which followed this remark was silenced by the chairman rising to his feet. He rose slowly, and stood for a time with his hands upon the table. He was a man to be noticed in any company, with his tall, gigantic figure, thin gray hair, and long white beard. His faded eyes looked calmly over the heads of the men before him while waiting for the noise to subside.
"B'ys," he began, "I ain't used to makin' speeches, but I must say a few words to-night. Ye've talked about the miseries of war an' whiskey. Ye've brought forth facts an' figures a-plenty, but ye don't seem to be in earnest."
"What are ye giving us, Sol?" spoke up one.
"Ye may think what ye like, but if you'd been through the furnace as I have ye'd not make so many jokes about whiskey. Ye'd speak from yer hearts, an' then ye'd be in earnest, never fear. Look at me, b'ys, the oldest man here, an' when I heered one young chap boast that to drink moderately was no harm, I trembled fer 'im. I thought so too once, an' I said so to Annie, my wife, God bless her. I can't make a long speech in eloquent words, but I jist want to show yez a page from an old man's life."
"What, a sermon?" asked one of Pritchen's gang, who was getting restless and anxious for something exciting to happen.
"Mebbe a few sarmons wouldn't hurt ye," and Sol fixed his eye sternly upon the young man.
"As I was a-sayin'," he continued, "I want to tell yez somethin'. When I was fust married me an' Annie were as happy as any couple in—oh, well, ye'd better not know whar. We had a fine farm, snug house, and good-sized barns, with kind neighbours a-plenty. By the time our two little uns were born we had laid by a neat sum of money.
"'It's fer Danny an' Chrissie, to eddicate 'em,' says Annie. An' oh, b'ys, I remember the last time she laid any away. I had come back from town, whar I had sold my load of produce, an' I handed her what money I had. She looked at it an' then at me kinder scared like.