Books: The Lights and Shadows of Real Life

T >> T.S. Arthur >> The Lights and Shadows of Real Life

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"They'd pretty quick put it on to us in their temperance papers
about the good device we had. They'd talk pretty fast about the
serpent that seduced Eve, and all that. No, blast 'em! A snake won't
do, Sandy."

"How will a monkey do?"

"A monkey might answer, if he was a little cuter than common. But we
can't get one handy."

"Try a band of music."

"That would soon wear out; and then we should have to get up
something else, and the people would suspect us of trying to gull
them."

"Then what is to be done, Mr. Graves? We can never stand it at this
rate."

"I'm sure I don't know." And the rum-seller leaned upon his bar, and
looked quite sad and dejected.

"I wonder what has become of Bill Riley?" he at length asked, rising
up with a sigh. "He hasn't been here for a week."

"Dick Hilton told me to-day that he believed he had joined the
teetotallers."

"I feared as much. He was one of my very best customers; worth a
clear dollar and a half a week to me, above the cost of the liquors,
the year round. And Tom Jones? Where can he be?"

"Gone, too."

"Tom Jones?" in surprise.

"It's a fact. They got him on the same night Bill Riley was caught."

"Foolish fellow, to go and throw himself away in that style! Them
temperance men will get from him every dollar he can earn, to build
Temperance Halls, and get up processions, and buy clothes for lazy,
loafing vagabonds, that had a great sight better be sent to the
poorhouse. It is too bad. My very blood boils when I think what
fools men are."

"And there's Harry Peters,--Dick Hilton told me that he'd gone,
too."

"Not Harry Peters, surely!"

"Yes. He hasn't been near our house for several days.

"Well, something must be done to get up a new set of customers, or
we are gone. We must invent some new drink."

"What shall it be?"

"O, that's no consequence. The name must be taking."

"Have you thought of one?"

"No, Can't you think of something?"

"Well--Let me see. But I'm sure I don't know what would do."

"What do you think of 'Bank Stock?' That would attract attention."

"I can't say that I like it."

"Or 'Greasers?'"

"Most too vulgar."

"So I think myself. Suppose we call it a 'Mummy?'"

"I'm afraid it wouldn't go. It ought to have 'Imperial,' or
'Nectar,' or something like that about it."

"O, yes, I see your notion. But they've all been used up long ago.
It must be some entirely new name, which, at the same time, will hit
a popular idea. As 'Tariff,' or 'Compromise.'"

"I see now. Well, can't you hammer out something?"

"I must try. Let me see. How will 'Sub-Treasury' do?"

"Capital! 'Graves' Sub-Treasury' will be just the thing. You see,
the young-fellows will say--'Why, what kind of a new drink is this
they've been getting up, down at the Harmony House?'

"'I don't know--What is it?'

"'The Sub-Treasury, they call it.'

"'Have you tried it yet?'

"'No.'

"'Well, come, let's give him a call. Novelty, you know, is the order
of the day.'

"That's the way these matters work, Mr. Graves. But how are you
going to make it?"

"I've not thought of that. But anything will do. Liquor tastes good
to 'em any way you choose to fix it."

"True enough. You can leave that part to me. I'll hatch up something
that will tickle as it goes down, and make 'em wish their throats
were a mile long, that they might taste it all the way."

"Have you tried Graves' new drink yet, Joe?" asked one young man of
another, a day or two after the conversation just noted took place.

"No.--What is it?"

"Sub-Treasury."

"Sub-Treasury? That must be something new. I wonder what it is?"

"I've just been wondering the same thing. Suppose we go down and try
it."

"I was about swearing off from ever tasting another drop of liquor.
But, I believe I will try a 'Sub-Treasury' with you, just for the
fun of the thing."

"Well, come along then."

And so the two started off for the Harmony House.

"Give us a couple of Sub-Treasuries," said one of them as they
entered; and forthwith a couple of glasses filled with mixed
liquors, crushed ice, lemonpeel, and snow-white sugar, were
prepared, and a straw placed in each, through which the young men
"imbibed" the new compound.

"Really, this is fine, Nelson!" said the one, called Joe, smacking
his lips.

"It is, indeed. You'll make your fortune out of this, Graves."

"Do you think so?" the pleased liquor-seller responded, with a broad
smile of satisfaction.

"I've not the least doubt of it," Joe, or Joseph Bancroft, said,--"I
had half resolved to join the temperance society this day. But your
'Sub-Treasury' has shaken my resolution. I shall never be able to do
it now in this world, nor in the next, either, if I can only get you
in the same place with me to make 'Sub-Treasury!' Ha! ha! ha!"

"A Sub-Treasury," said another young man, coming up to the bar.

"Here, landlord, let us have one of your--what do you call 'em? O,
Sub-Treasuries!" was the request of another.

"Hallo, Sandy! What new-fangled stuff is this you've got?" broke in
a half-drunken creature, staggering up, and holding on to the
bar-railing. "Let us have one, will you?"

Both Sandy and Graves were now kept as busy as they could be, mixing
liquors and serving customers. The advertisement which had been
inserted in two or three of the morning papers, in the following
words, had answered fully the rum-sellers' expectations.

"Drop in at the HARMONY HOUSE, and try a 'Sub-Treasury.' 'What is a
Sub-Treasury?' you ask. Come and see for yourself, and taste for
yourself. Old Graves' word for it, you'll never want anything else
to wet your whistle with, as long as you live."

All through the forenoon the run was kept up steadily, dozens of new
faces appearing at the bar, and cheering the heart of the
tavern-keeper with the prospect of a fresh set of customers. About
two o'clock, succeeded a pause.

"That works admirably,--don't it, Sandy?" said Mr. Graves, as soon
as the bar-room was perfectly clear, for the first time, since
morning.

"Indeed, it does. They havn't given me time to blow. But aint some
folks easily gulled?"

"Easily enough, Sandy. This Sub-Treasury they think something
wonderful. But it's only rum after all, by another name, and in a
little different form. A 'cobbler,' or a 'julep' has lost its
attractions; but get up some new name for an old compound, and you
go all before the wind again."

"I think we might tempt some of the new converts to temperance with
this. Bill Riley, for instance."

"No doubt. I'll see if I can't come across Bill; he is too good a
customer to lose."

And so saying, Mr. Graves retired from the bar-room, to get his
dinner, feeling better satisfied with himself than he had been for a
long time. After eating heartily, and drinking freely, he went into
his handsomely furnished parlour, and reclined himself upon a sofa,
thinking still, and with a pleasurable emotion that warmed his
bosom, of the success of his expedient to draw custom. He had been
lying down, it seemed to him, but a few moments, when a tap at the
door, to which he responded with a loud "come in," was followed by
the entrance of a thin, pale, haggard-looking creature, her clothes
soiled, and hanging loosely, and in tatters about her attenuated
body. By the hand she held a little girl, from whose young face had
faded every trace of childhood's happy expression. She, too, was
thin and pale, and had a fixed, stony look, of hopeless suffering.
They came up to where he still lay upon the sofa, and stood looking
down upon him in silence.

"Who are you? What do you want?" the rum-seller ejaculated, raising
himself up with a strange feeling about his heart.

"The wife and child of one of your victims! He is dying, and wishes
to see you."

"Who is he? What is his name?" asked the tavern-keeper, while his
face grew pale, and his lips quivered.

"William Riley," was the mournful reply.

"Go home, woman! Go home! I cannot go with you! What good can I do
your husband?"

"You must go! You shall go!" shrieked the wretched being, suddenly
grasping the arm of Mr. Graves, with a tight grip, while her hand
seemed to burn his arm, as if it were a hand of fire.

A sudden and irresistible impulse to obey the call of the dying man
came over him, and as he arose mechanically, the mother and her
child turned towards the door, and he followed after them. On
emerging into the street, he became conscious of a great and sudden
change in external nature. On retiring from his bar an hour before,
the sun was shining in a sky of spotless beauty. Now the heavens
were shrouded in dense masses of black clouds that were whirling
here and there in immense eddies, or careering across the sky as if
driven by a fierce and mighty wind. But below, all was hushed and
pulseless as the grave; and the stagnant air felt like the hot
vapour over an immense furnace. The tavern-keeper would have paused
and returned so soon as he became conscious of this fearful change,
portending the approach of a wild storm; but his conductors seemed
to know his thoughts; and turning, each fixed upon him a stern and
threatening look, whose strange power he could neither resist nor
understand.

"Come," said the mother in a hollow, husky voice; and then turned
and moved on again, while the tavern-keeper followed impulsively.
They had proceeded thus, for only a few paces, when a fierce light
glanced through half the sky, followed by a deafening crash, under
the concussion of which the earth trembled as if shaken to its very
centre. The tavern-keeper again paused in shrinking irresolution,
and again the woman's emphatic,

"Come!" caused him to follow his guides mechanically.

Soon the storm burst over their heads, and raged with a wild fury,
such as he had never before witnessed. The wind howled through the
streets and alleys of the city, with the roar of thunder; while the
deep reverberations following every broad sheet of lightning that
blazed through the whole circle of the heavens, was as the roar of a
dissolving universe. Amid all this, the rain fell like a deluge. But
the rum-seller's guides paused not, and he kept steadily onwards
after them, shrinking now into the shelter of the houses, and now
breasting the fierce storm with a momentary desperate resolution.

Through street after street, lined on either side with wretched
tenements that seemed tottering and just ready to fall, and through
alley after alley, where squalid misery had hid itself from the eye
of general observation, did they pass, in what seemed to Mr. Graves
an interminable succession; At last the woman and her child paused
at the door of an old, wretched-looking frame house, that appeared
just ready to sink to the ground with decay.

"This is the place, sir. Come in! Your victim would see you before
he dies," the woman said in a deep voice that made a chill run
through every nerve, at the same time that she looked him sternly
and with an expression of malignant triumph in the face.

Unable to resist the impulse that drove him onward, the rum-seller
entered the house.

"See there, sir! Look! Behold the work of your own hands!" exclaimed
the woman with startling emphasis, as he found himself in a room,
with a few old rags in one corner of it for a bed, upon which lay,
in the last sad agonies of dissolution, his old customer, Bill
Riley, who, he had been that day informed by his bar-keeper, had
joined the temperance society.

"There, sir! See there!" she continued, grasping his arm, and
dragging him up to where the miserable wretch lay. "Look at
him!--Bill--Bill!" she continued, stooping down, while she still
held tightly the rum-seller's arm, and shaking the dying man.
"Bill--Bill! Here he is. You said you wanted to see him! Now curse
him, Bill! Curse him with your dying breath!" And the woman's voice
rose to a wild shriek.

The wretch, thus rudely and suddenly called back from the brink of
death into a painful consciousness of existence, half rose up, and
stared wildly around him for a moment or two.

"Here he is, Bill! Here he is!" resumed his wife, again shaking him
violently.

"Who? Who?" inquired the dying man.

"Why, the rum-seller, who robbed you of your hard earnings, that he
might roll in wealth and feast daily on luxuries, while your wife
and children were starving! Here he is. Curse him now, with your
dying breath! Curse him, I say, Bill Riley! Curse him!"

"Who? Who?" eagerly asked the wretched being, a thrill of new life
seeming to flash through his exhausted frame--"Old Graves? Where is
he?"

"Here he is, Bill! Here he is! Don't you see him?"

"Ah, yes! I see him now!" And Riley fixed his eyes, that seemed, to
the rum-seller, to burn and flash like balls of fire, sending off
vivid scintillations, upon him with a long and searching stare.

"Ah, yes," he continued, "this is old Graves, the rum-seller, who
has sent more men to hell, and more widows and orphans to the
poor-house, than any other man living. How do you do, sir?" rising
up still more in his bed, and grasping the unwilling hand of the
tavern-keeper, which he clenched hard, and shook with superhuman
strength. "How are you, old fellow? I'm glad to see you once more in
this world. We shall have a jolly time in the next, though, shan't
we?"

A smile of malignant triumph flitted for a moment over the livid
face of Riley. Then its expression brightened into one of
intelligence.

"Look here," he said, and brought his lips close to the ear of
Graves. Then in a deep whisper, he breathed the words,

"Sub-Treasury!"

The rum-seller started, suddenly, and grew paler than ever.

Instantly a loud, unearthly laugh rang through the room, causing the
blood to curdle about his heart.

"Ha! ha! ha! I thought that chord could be touched! Ha! ha! That was
a capital idea, wasn't it, old fellow? But you were too late for
Bill Riley. You thought the temperance men had him. But that was a
little mistake."

The sweat already stood in large drops on the pale face of the
tavern-keeper, and his limbs trembled like the quivering aspen.

"Horrible!" he murmured, closing his eyes, to shut out the scene.

"Not half so horrible as the place where I was, just before you came
in, Mr. Graves," said Riley in a calmer voice. "And where do you
think that was?"

"In hell, I suppose," replied the rum-seller, with the energy of
desperation.

"Exactly," was the calm reply. "And what do you think I heard and
saw there? Let me tell you. I was dead for a little while, and found
myself in strange quarters, as you will say, when you get there. I
always thought devils had long tails, and cloven feet, horns, and
all that kind of thing. But that's a vulgar error. They are nothing
but wicked men like you, who in this world have taken delight in
injuring others. You will make a first-rate devil! Ha! ha! I heard
'em say so, and wishing you were only there to help them work out
their evil intentions.

"There are a great many little hells there, all grouped into one
immense hell, like societies here, grouped into one larger society
or nation. And there, as here, every smaller society is engaged in
doing some particular thing, and all are in one society who love to
do that thing. As for instance, all who, while here, have taken
delight in theft, are there associated together, and are all the
while busy in inventing reasons to put into the heads of thieves
here to justify them in stealing. Murderers, in like manner; and so
rum-sellers. They have a hell all filled with rum-sellers there! I
was let into it for a little while to see what was going on, and who
do you think I saw there. Why, old Adams, that died about a month
ago. The old fellow was as lively as a cricket, and as busy as a
bee.

"'How is that prime old chap, Graves?' he asked of me, as soon as he
found out I was there.

"'I havn't seen him for a week,' I replied. 'I have been sick for
that time.'

"'But he's a rum 'un, though, ain't he?' chuckled Adams. 'Many a
scheme he and I have laid to get money out of the grog-drinkers. But
he was always ahead of me. I used, in my early days, to feel a
little compunction when I saw a clever fellow going to ruin. But it
never affected him in the least. All was fish that came into his
net. I wish we had him with us. We want just such scheming devils as
he to help us devise ways and means to circumvent these temperance
men. They'll ruin us, if we don't look out. How were they coming on
when you left?'

"'Carrying everything before them,' I said. 'The rum-sellers are
almost driven to their wit's ends for devices to get customers.'

"'Too bad! Too bad!' ejaculated old Adams. 'I'll turn hell upside
down, but what I'll beat them out.'

"'You'll have to do your prettiest, then, let me tell you, old
fellow,' I rejoined, 'for the temperance cause is going with a
perfect rush. It is a mighty torrent whose course, neither men nor
devils can stay. It moves onward with a power and majesty that
astonishes the world,--and onward it will move, until your hell of
rum-makers and rum-sellers will not be able to find a single point
through which to flow into the world and tempt men with your
infernal devices!'

"O, if you had heard the horrid yell of malignancy which arose, and
echoed through the black chamber of that region of wickedness and
misery, it would have made you shrink into nothingness with terror.
They fairly gnashed on me with their teeth in impotent rage. At
length old Adams got upon a whiskey-still--they have such things in
hell--the pattern was got from there when introduced here, and made
a speech to his associates. From what he said, I found that he had
minute information of all that was going on in this region.

"'Old Graves,' he said--'our very best man, has already been so
reduced in his business by this accursed temperance movement, that
he has recently thought seriously of giving up. This must not be. We
cannot lose him. No mind receives our suggestions more readily than
his.--If he gives up, we lose a host. You all know, that our
influence on earth is powerless, unless we have men to carry out our
plans. If they will not listen to our suggestion--if they will not
become our agents, we can do nothing there. As spiritual existences,
we cannot affect that which is corporeal, except through the
spiritual united with the corporeal--that is, through spiritual
bodies in material bodies. In other words, we can act on men's
minds, and they can do our works on earth for us. Now, seeing that
we can do nothing to stop this temperance movement, except through
the self-love of the rum-sellers and rum-makers, it will never do to
let old Graves fall. We must help him to some new scheme by which to
bring back his diminished custom. Now what shall it be?'

"'Some device that will call attention to his bar-room, is what is
wanted,' remarked one.

"Yes, that is plain enough,' replied old Adams, who seemed to be a
kind of head devil there--'but what shall it be? That's the
question!'

"'Suppose we put him up to getting a woman to walk a plank,'
suggested one.

"'No. That has been tried already; and if it is tried again so soon,
these temperance men will cry, humbug!'

"'How would it do for him to get a pretty girl behind his bar.'

"'That might do. But then, his wife is a sort of religious woman,
and wouldn't let him do it.'

"Couldn't we induce him to poison her, and so get her out of the
way?'

"'No--That's out of the question. He kind of likes the woman too
well for that.'

"'What, then, do you suggest?'

"'Some new drink will be the thing. Something that will tickle the
ear at the same time that it tickles the palate. It will be a great
thing, if, in this matter, we can kill two birds with one stone.
Bring back by some new attraction the wavering ones, and turn the
tide of custom in the direction of our very particular friend Mr.
Graves.'

"'Have you thought of a name for it?'

"'No.'

"'How would Ambrosia do?' suggested one.

"'Not at all,' replied old Adams. 'It aint the thing to catch gulls
now-a-days. And more than that, it isn't something new.'

"'What do you think of Harlequinade?'

"'That might answer; but it's been used, already.'

"'Fiscal agent?'

"'The same objection.'

"'Mummy?'

"'The same.'

"'Cobbler?'

"'Good, but stale.'

"'Greaser?'

"'No'--And Adams shook his head emphatically.

"'Sam Weller?'

"'Been used already.'

"'Veto?'

"'That too.'

"'Hardware?'

"'Likewise.'

"'What do you think of Elevator?'

"'That might do; but still I can't exactly say that I like it. It
should be something to strike the popular idea.'

"'Sub-Treasury, then?'

"That's it, exactly! Sub-Treasury--Sub-Treasury. Let it be called
Sub-Treasury! And now, as I have more power over Graves than any of
you, let me have the managing of him.' And so saying, Adams seemed
to go away, and remain, for a day or two. When he came back, all the
devils gathered around him full of interest to hear of his success.
They greeted him, first, with three wild, infernal cheers, full of
malignant pleasure, and then asked,

"'What news? What news from earth?'

"'Glorious!' was his response. And then another wild yell of triumph
went up.

"'I found Graves,' he went on, 'just the same pliant fool that he
has ever been. He fell into my suggestions at once, and on the very
next day advertised his 'Sub-Treasury.' It took like a charm. I
could tell you of a dozen young fellows just about being caught by
the teetootallers, who couldn't withstand the new temptation. There
was one in particular. His name is Joe Bancroft. Only married about
three years, and almost at the bottom of the hill already. On the
day before 'Sub-Treasury' was announced, he came home sober, for the
first time in six months. His wife, a beautiful young girl when he
married her, but now a thin, pale, heart-broken creature, sat near a
window sewing when he entered. But she did not look up. She heard
him come in--but she could not turn her eyes towards him, for her
heart always grew sicker whenever she saw the sad changes that drink
had wrought upon him.

"For a few moments Joe stood gazing at his young wife, with a
tenderer interest than he had felt for a long time. He saw that she
did not look up, and was conscious of the reason.

"'Sarah,' he at last said, in a voice of affection, coming to her
side.

"'What do you want?' she replied, still without looking up.

"'Look up at me, Sarah,' he said, in a voice that slightly trembled.

"Instantly her work dropped from her hands, and she lifted her eyes
to the face of her husband, and murmured in a low, sad tone,

"'What is it you wish, Joseph?'

"'You look very pale, and very sorrowful, Sarah,' her husband said,
with increasing tenderness of tone and manner.

"It had been so very long since he had spoken to her kindly, or
since he had appeared to take any interest in her, that the first
tenderly uttered word melted down her heart, and she burst into
tears, and leaning her head against him, sobbed long and
passionately.

"With many a kind word, and many a solemn promise of reformation did
the husband soothe the stricken heart of his wife, into which a new
hope was infused.

"'I will be a changed man, after this, Sarah,' he said--
'And then it must go well with us. It seems as if I had been, for
the last year, the victim of insanity. I cannot realize how it is
possible for any one to abandon himself as I have done; to the
neglect of all the most sacred ties and duties that can appertain to
us. How deeply--O, how deeply you must have suffered!'

"'Deeply, indeed, dear husband!--More than tongue can utter,' the
young wife replied, in a solemn tone. 'It has seemed, sometimes, as
if I must die. Day after day, week after week, and month after
month, to see you coming in and going out, as you have done, for
ever intoxicated. To have no kind word or look. No rational
intercourse with one to whom I had yielded up my heart so
confidingly. O, my husband! you know not how sad a trial you have
imposed upon your wife!'

"'Sad--sad, indeed, I am sure it has been, Sarah! But let us try and
forget the past. There is bright sunshine yet for us, and it will
soon, I trust, fall warmly and cheeringly on our pathway.'

"All that day Bancroft remained at home with his wife, renewing his
assurances of reformation, and laying his plans for the future. I
saw all this, and began to fear lest Joe would really get freed from
the toils we had, through the rum-sellers, thrown around him--toils,
that I had felt, sure would soon cause him to fall headlong down
amongst us. I, of course, suggested nothing to him then; for it
would have been of little use. Towards night, his wife proposed that
he should sign the pledge. I was at his ear in a moment--

"'That would be too degrading!' I whispered. 'You have not got quite
so low as that yet.'

"'No, Sarah, I do not wish to sign the pledge,' he at once replied.

"'Why not, dear?'

"'Because, I have always despised this way of binding oneself down
by a written contract, not to do a thing. It is unmanly. My
resolution is sufficient. If I say that I will never drink another
drop, why I won't. But if I were to bind myself by a pledge not to
touch liquor again, I should, never feel a moment's peace, until I
had broken it.'

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