“Nor I,” replied Simon Goldollar; “for to me it’s just as necessary in one place as another.”
“And as I am not a ‘travelling gent,’” continued Phil, “and have never touched liquor in my life, and don’t ever intend to, I can’t see why I should provide myself with a flask of it.”
“How about being ready for your friends?”
“I am always ready for my friends, and glad to see them, and willing to treat them to the best of everything I may happen to have; but none of my friends have any more use for liquor than I have.”
“You and your friends must be a precious spooney lot,” muttered Simon Goldollar to himself; but aloud he said: “Oh, well, you are young yet, and not rid of your Yankee notions. Wait till you’ve been out on the coast a few months, and you’ll sing a different tune.”
“I guess not,” replied Phil, stoutly. “For I’m singing the same tune now that my father sings, and he has been out on the ‘coast,’ as you call it, for a good many years, off and on.”
“Well, you must admit that it’s a mighty good medicine to have along, and a fine thing for sickness.”
“Yes,” replied the lad, dryly; “I have often heard my father say that liquor was one of the best things in the world for sickness; but that he would rather not be made sick in that way.”
“I suppose your father doesn’t smoke either?”
“Oh yes he does; he smokes a cigar every evening after dinner.”