"I never expected he would be much, but I had no idea he would come to this so soon," added Frank. "I scarcely ever heard of a person going to ruin so quick."
"James was a very smart fellow, naturally," said Nat. "I once thought he was the most talented fellow of his age in town, and it would have turned out so if he had tried to make anything of himself."
"I think so, too," said Frank. "But he never wanted to be respectable. He always seemed to glory in drinking. He was earning five dollars a day in the machine-shop when they turned him away, and was considered by far the best workman there. He lost his place on account of his intemperate habits; but it never seemed to trouble him. It is my opinion now, that he had a strong appetite for intoxicating drinks at the time we organized the Total Abstinence Society, and for that reason he opposed it."
"His case will be a good defence of the temperance cause," continued Nat, "and I hope the rumsellers will never hear the last of it. I can scarcely see what a person can say in favor of the use and traffic in strong drink, with such an illustration of the evil before them."
The news of James's condition spread through the village, and many received it in a very exaggerated form. Some heard that he was dead, and others that he was near dying, the latter rumor not being far from the truth. Before night, however, it was announced that he was better, and there was hope of his recovery. All sorts of stories were put in circulation about the place of his drinking, and the circumstances attending it. The rumseller very justly came in for his share of condemnation, while he and his allies were disposed to say very little, for the simple reason that there was not much for them to say. Such an instance of degradation in the very dawn of manhood, when the dew of his youth was still upon the victim, was an unanswerable argument for the cause of temperance. He who could close his senses against such an appeal in behalf of sobriety, would take the side of error in spite of the plainest evidence to the contrary. It was not strange, then, that much was said at the fireside, in the streets and shops, and everywhere, concerning the event, nor that the foes of temperance were inclined to be unusually silent.
"Doctor! how is James Cole now?" inquired a gentleman who met him some three or four weeks after the fatal night of drunkenness.
"His case is hopeless," answered the doctor. "He has a hard cough, and to all appearance is in a quick consumption."
"Do you consider it the consequence of his exposure on that night?"
"Certainly, it can be nothing else. If it had been a very cold night he would have been frozen to death in the morning. I did not know that he had become so much of a drunkard until this happened."
"I did," replied the gentleman. "I have seen a good deal of him, and have known something of his habits. I was satisfied, when he was but sixteen or eighteen years of age, that he had an appetite for liquor, and I am not surprised at the result."