off I started for the post office. In returnin' I thought I'd jist go through the woods where the boys were chopping wood, and wait and go to the house with them when they went to dinner. I found them hard at work, but as merry as crickets, 'Well, cousin John, are you done writing?' 'Yes,' answered I. 'Have you posted them?' 'Yes,' 'Hope yon didn't go to any place inquiring for grog.' 'No, I knowed it was no good to do that,' 'I suppose a cock-tail would taste good now,' 'Well, I guess it would,' says I. The three boys then joined in a hearty laugh. 'I suppose you have told 'em that we are a dry set up here?' 'Well I aint told 'em anything else.' 'How, cousin John,' said Edward, 'if you wont say anything, we will give you a small taste. For mercy's sake don't let father or mother know it; they are such rabid teetotallers, that they would not sleep a wink to-night if they thought there was any spirits about the place.' 'I am mum,' says I. And the boys took a jug out of a hollow stump, and gave me some first-rate peach brandy. And during the fortnight that I was in Vermont, with my teetotal relations, I was kept about as well corned as if I had been among my hot water friends in Tennessee."
This narrative, given by the white hat man, was received with unbounded applause by all except the pale gent, in spectacles, who showed, by the way in which he was running his fingers between his cravat and throat, that he did not intend to "give it up so." The white hat gent, was now the, lion of the company.
"Oh, you did not get hold of the right kind of teetotallers," said the minister. "I can give you a tale worth a dozen of yours," continued he. "Took at society in the states where temperance views prevail, and you will there see real happiness. The
