"No. I can't write anything but a bill, or a label for one of your pickle-pots."
"But try."
"Well, give me a pen, some ink, and a piece of paper."
But there was neither pen, ink, nor paper, in the house. Mrs. Braddock, however, soon mustered them all in the neighbourhood, and came and put them down upon the table before her husband.
"There, now, write a pledge," she said.
"I will." And Jim took up the pen and wrote—"Blister my feathers if ever I drink another drop of Alcohol, or anything that will make drunk come, sick or well, dead or alive!"
JIM BRADDOCK."
"But that's a queer pledge, Jim."
"I don't care if it is. I'll keep it."
"It's just no pledge at all."