"Off to my work like an honest, sober man," Jim replied, pausing to return his answer. "I've taken the pledge, my hearties, and what's more, I'm going to keep it. It's all down in black and white, and my name's to it in the bargain,—so there's an end of the matter, you see! Good bye, boys!—I'm sorry to leave you,—but you must go my way if you want my company. Good bye, Harry! You've got the old whiskey-barrel, and that's the last you'll ever get of mine. I never had any good luck while it was in my house, and I am most heartily glad it's out, and in your whiskey-shop, where I hope it will stay. Good bye, old cronies!"
And so saying, Jim turned away, and walked off with a proud, erect bearing. His old companions raised a feeble shout, but according to Jim's account, the laugh was so much on the wrong side of their mouths, that it didn't seem to him anything like a laugh.
At eleven o'clock, Mr. Jones came out as usual, and said—
"Well, Jim, I suppose you begin to feel a little like it was grog-time?"'
"No, sir," Jim replied. "I'm done with grog."
"Done with grog!" ejaculated Mr. Jones, in pleased surprise.
"Why, you didn't seem at all afraid of it, yesterday?"
"I did drink pretty hard, yesterday; but that was all your fault."
"My fault! How do you make that out?"
"Clear enough. Yesterday morning, seeing what a poor miserable wretch I had got to be, and how much my wife and children were suffering, I swore of from ever touching another drop. I wouldn't sign a pledge, though, because that, I thought, would be giving up my freedom. In coming here, I got past Harry Arnold's grog-shop pretty well, but when you came out so pleasantly at eleven o'clock, and asked me to go over to the house and take a drink, I couldn't refuse for the life of me—especially as I felt as dry as a bone. So I drank pretty freely, as you' know, and went home, in consequence, drunk at night, notwithstanding I had promised Sally, solemnly, in the morning, never to touch another drop again as long as I lived. Poor soul! Bad enough, and discouraged enough, she felt last night, I know.