John Barleycorn

en. I paid the money over, received the bill of sale, and French Frank treated. This struck me as an evident custom, and a logical one-the seller, wh

I figured it immediately that he made a profit on the very drink he drank. I could, in a way, considering that they were friends and s

isky. What could I do, here in this company of big men, all drinking whisky? "Whisky," I said, with the careless

ul. Eighty cents-the equivalent of eight long hours of my toil at the machine, gone down our throats, and gone like

crew, lingered. No hint broke through my obtuseness of why they lingered. I have often thought since of how they must have rega

t, began to behave curiously toward me. I sensed the change in his attitude, saw the forbidding glitter in his eyes, and wondered. The more

ot dreamed of giving the Queen of the Oyster Pirates a second thought, and who did not know that French Frank was madly and Latinly in love with her-how was I to guess that I had done him shame? And how was I to guess that the story of how the Queen had

going up river with him to get a schooner for oystering. When he gets down on the beds, watch out. He says he

rifted back to the group at the bar. No; I did not treat. I never dreamed that I was expected to treat

k. "He's crazy jealous of you," was the answer. "Do you think s

f me-and jealous over a girl most romantically named the Queen of the Oyster Pirates. I had read of such things in books, and regarded them as personal probabilities of a distant mat

stay away from it for such reason? Wherever life ran free and great, there men drank. Romance and Adventure seemed always to go down the street locked arm in arm with John Barleycorn. To know the

e drink? When they persisted in buying the stuff and thrusting it upon me, why, I would drink it. It was the price I would pay for their comradeship. And I didn't have to get drunk. I had not got drunk the Sunday afternoon I arrange