belongs to the Good Templars, and is a hard-working, enthusiastic

supporter of all temperance reforms. But, to his bitter distress, every

now and then Eng gets drunk, and, of course, that makes Chang drunk too.

This unfortunate thing has been a great sorrow to Chang, for it almost

destroys his usefulness in his favorite field of effort. As sure as he

is to head a great temperance procession Eng ranges up alongside of him,

prompt to the minute, and drunk as a lord; but yet no more dismally and

hopelessly drunk than his brother, who has not tasted a drop. And so the

two begin to hoot and yell, and throw mud and bricks at the Good

Templars; and, of course, they break up the procession. It would be

manifestly wrong to punish Chang for what Eng does, and, therefore, the

Good Templars accept the untoward situation, and suffer in silence and

sorrow. They have officially and deliberately examined into the matter,

and find Chang blameless. They have taken the two brothers and filled

Chang full of warm water and sugar and Eng full of whisky, and in

twenty-five minutes it was not possible to tell which was the drunkest.

Both were as drunk as loons--and on hot whisky punches, by the smell of

their breath. Yet all the while Chang's moral principles were unsullied,

his conscience clear; and so all just men were forced to confess that he

was not morally, but only physically, drunk. By every right and by every

moral evidence the man was strictly sober; and, therefore, it caused his

friends all the more anguish to see him shake hands with the pump and try

to wind his watch with his night-key.

There is a moral in these solemn warnings--or, at least, a warning in

these solemn morals; one or the other. No matter, it is somehow. Let us

261

Sketches New and Old