“You may fill this bottle; Uncle Peter is weak, he thinks it will put new life in him.”
“So it will, Ernest; there’s nothing like good whisky to make an old man strong, or a young man, for that matter.”
It is easy to see that Joe did not believe in total abstinence.
“I don’t drink myself!” said Ernest, replying to the last part of Joe’s remark.
“There’s nothing like whisky,” remarked the tramp in a hoarse voice.
“You’ve drunk your share, I’m thinking,” said Luke Robbins, the tall hunter.
“Not yet,” returned the tramp. “I haven’t had my share yet. There’s lots of people that has drunk more’n me.”
“Why haven’t you drunk your share? You hadn’t no objections, I reckon?”
“I hadn’t the money,” said the tramp sadly. “I’ve never had much money. I ain’t lucky.”
“If you had more money, you might not be living now. You’d have drunk yourself to death.”