Janice clapped her hands softly, and her eyes shone. The school teacher went on with increased warmth:
"Polktown is really being vastly injured by the liquor selling. To think of those boys becoming intoxicated—one of them of my school, too——"
The young man halted suddenly in this speech. In his earnestness he had forgotten that it was his school no longer.
"It is a disgraceful state of affairs," 'Rill hastened to say, kindly covering Nelson's momentary confusion.
But Janice beamed at the young man. "Oh, Nelson! I am delighted to hear you speak so. We are going to hold a temperance meeting—Mr. Middler and I have talked it over. And I have obtained Elder Concannon's promise to be one of those on the platform. Polktown must be waked up——"
"What! Again? Haw! haw! haw!" burst out Walky. "Jefers-pelters, Janice Day! You've abeout give Polktown insomnia already! I sh'd say our eyes was purty well opened——"
"Yours are not, old fellow," said Nelson, good-naturedly, but with marked earnestness, too. "You're patronizing the barroom side of the hotel altogether more than is good for you, and if you don't know it yourself, Walky, I feel myself enough your friend to tell you so."
"Nonsense! nonsense!" returned the expressman, reddening a little, yet man enough to accept personal criticism when he was so prone to criticizing other people. "What leetle I drink ain't never goin' ter hurt me."
"Nor anybody else?" asked Janice, softly, for she liked Walky and was sorry to see him go wrong. "How about your example, Walky?"
"Shucks! Don't talk ter me abeout 'example.' That's allus the excuse of the weak-headed. If my example was goin' ter hurt the boys, ev'ry one o' them would wanter be th' town expressman! Haw! haw! haw! I ain't never seen none o' them tumblin' over each other fer th' chance't ter cut me out on my job. An' 'cause I chaw terbaccer, is ev'ry white-headed kid in town goin' ter take up chawin' as a habit?