"One day, after a drunken spree, an old paper from my own town somehow drifted into my hands. Here is a piece of it. Look," and Sol held up a small note book, with a clipping pasted on the inside. "See the headin':
'Died in the Poor House!'
"It was my Annie! the trimmest lass an' best wife a man ever had. An' what did it, b'ys? I ask yez that. What did it? Whiskey, that's what did it, an' ye'll joke about it, an' say it doesn't hurt to take a drop now an' then."
"He's a weak fool who can't," spoke up Pritchen. He was not satisfied at the silence which followed when Sol finished, and the impression he had made upon the men.
"Weak fool! Weak fool, did ye say?" returned Sol. "But mebbe yer right when I come to think of it. An' I guess thar are many more of us who are weak fools, too, fer what do we do? Walk right into a saloon an' see writin' there plainer than on the walls of Bill Shazzar's palace, which doesn't need a Dann'l to tell its meanin', either."
"I never saw any writing on saloons," sneered Pritchen. "You've had the D. T.'s, old man, that was the trouble with you. What you thought was writing was nothing but snakes."
"Ye see, b'ys," continued Sol, ignoring Pritchen's thrust, "the words, 'Homes Ruined Here,' 'Disease, Insanity, an' Murder Found Here,' 'This Way to the Poor House an' the Grave.' That's what we see, an' yit we walk right in an' buy with them words a-starin' us in the face."
"You're a d— fool and a liar," shouted Pritchen, at which his men set up a roar, delighted to know that something was about to happen.
Caribou Sol started; the colour fled from his face, and with one bound he leaped forward, scrambled over the seats, and confronted the man who had dared to use such insulting words.
"Take 'em back!" he cried. "Take back them words, or by heavens I'll pin ye to the wall!"