“Crupp, you’ve done the right thing; you might have done it sooner, but you can do a great deal of good yet.”
The ex-rumseller quietly replied,
“Yes, if I’m helped at it.”
“Helped? Of course you’ll be helped, if you pray for it. You’ve repented; now address the throne of grace, and——”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Mr. Crupp. “I’m not entirely unacquainted with the Lord, if I have sold rum. You know his sun shines on the just and the unjust, and I’ve had a good share of it. It’s help from men that I want, and am afraid that I can’t get it.”
“Why, Crupp,” remonstrated the Squire, “you must have made something out of your business, if it is an infernal one.”
“I don’t mean that,” replied Mr. Crupp, a little tartly. “You’ve been on your little drunks when you were young, of course?”
The Squire almost twitched Mr. Crupp off the sidewalk, as he exclaimed, with righteous indignation,
“I never was drunk in my life.”
“Oh!” said the convert. “Well, some have, and pledges won’t quiet an uneasy stomach, no way you can fix ’em. Them that never drank are all right, but the drinking boys that signed to-night’ll be awful thirsty in the morning.”