Before he had finished, Wolfe was worked up into a state of furious anger. “You miserable low-lived scoundrel!” he muttered through his clinched teeth, shaking his fist in the direction of Hank Hoffer, whom he now recognized as the one who had played him such a mean trick the night before; “I’ll pay you off for this; see if I don’t.”
“It was a mean trick, and I hope he’ll live to be sorry for it,” said Breeze; “but don’t you think you were almost as much to blame as he?”
“I!” exclaimed Wolfe, in surprise; “how do you mean? By being so soft as to let that fellow get the best of me?”
“I mean by having anything to do with him when you found out that he wanted you to drink with him.”
“Why, man! I thought he only wanted me to take a glass with him in a friendly way.”
“And do you think it is right to take that kind of a glass?”
“Certainly; where’s the harm?”
“Well, I expect you and I have been differently brought up, then. My father thinks it is the very worst and most dangerous habit a young man can get into. As for the harm, seems to me it is plain enough in this case at any rate. If it hadn’t been for that glass we wouldn’t be in this fix now, and mother wouldn’t be breaking her heart at home, as I’m sure she is at this minute, for not knowing what has become of us.”
“I hadn’t thought of it in that light,” said Wolfe, who had never been taught as Breeze had, to regard drinking as a sin.
“I wish I could get you to think of it in that light now,” said Breeze. “Oh, Wolfe! if you would only promise, this very minute, that you’d never touch another glass of liquor as long as you live, I believe I should be glad that all this had happened--will you?”