The colonel went down several blocks watching for an opportunity to dispose of the flask. There were a good many people on the streets, and there seemed to be always somebody looking at him.
Two or three of the colonel’s friends met him, and stared at him curiously. His face was much flushed, his hat was on the back of his head and there was a wild glare in his eyes. Some of them passed without speaking, and the colonel laughed bitterly. He was getting desperate. Whenever he would get to a vacant lot, he would stop and gaze searchingly in every direction to see if the coast was clear, so that he could pull out the flask and drop it. People began to watch him from windows, and two or three little boys began to follow him. The colonel turned around and spoke sharply to them, and they replied:
“Look at the old guy with a jag on lookin’ for a place to lie down. W’y don’t yer go to de calaboose and snooze it off, mister?”
The colonel finally dodged the boys, and his spirits rose as he saw before him a vacant square covered with weeds, in some places as high as his head.
Here was a place where he could get rid of the bottle. The minister of his church lived on the opposite side of the vacant square, but the weeds were so high that the house was completely hidden.
The colonel looked guiltily around and seeing no one, plunged into a path that led through the weeds. When he reached the center, where they were highest, he stopped and drew the whisky flask from his pocket. He looked at it a moment; smiled grimly, and said aloud:
“Well, you’ve given me lots of trouble that nobody knows anything about but me.”
He was about to drop the flask when he heard a noise, and looking up he saw his minister standing in the path before him, gazing at him with horrified eyes.
“My dear Colonel J——,” said the good man. “You distress me beyond measure. I never knew that you drank. I am indeed deeply grieved to see you here in this condition.”