“I took my first drink last night, Algernon,” said one of the pair.
“Did you, Clarence? Honestly, where did you get it?” queried the other.
“Down at a near beer parlor. It was real near beer, too, with one-half of one per cent alcohol and everything.”
“I’ve been drinking, too,” said the other; “I had two whole glasses of near beer the other night. I was going to a party, you know, and wanted to get plenty of pep.”
“Did you drink your near beer straight, or did you dilute it with water?” asked Clarence.
“I drank it straight. I wanted to get the full kick. Straight, you know, with a coupla chasers.”
“I certainly went crazy after I took that drink, though. I thought I was going to try to sing at first,” said Clarence.
“I hope none of my friends saw the way I acted after I took that near beer the other night,” Algernon put in. “I went batty right away. I started telling all sorts of funny jokes and laughing ridiculously. Went to see my girl immediately after, and she said she could tell I had been drinking after I told her. She promised not to tell it, though.”
The two young men got off the car about this time, and a grizzled old dog sitting in front of me bit the neck off a bottle of turpentine he carried and drank the contents of the bottle. “I heard that pair talking,” he said.
* * *