The Black Lion Inn

The Black Lion Inn. My coming was the fruit of no plan; the hostelry was strange to me, and my arrival, casual and desultory, one of those accidents which belo

quietly and without word from the great city, I found this ancient inn with a purpose to turn presently sober. Also by remaining secluded for

s here I met the Jolly Doctor who, by saving me from my fate of a drunkard, a fate to wh

er touched a drop and lived and died the uncompromising enemy of the bowl. It was from my grandsire, doubtless, I had any hankering after rum, for I have heard

that ancestor, I asked him what malady carried off my grandsire. My father did not reply at once, but stalked silently

than anything els

iosity until evening when my mother and I were alone. My mother, to whom I re-put the query, informed me in whispers how she h

to strike the family surface with all its old-time richness in myself. I state this the more secure of its truth because

years; and when, being in a shaken state, I sent down from the apartments I had taken and requested the presence of a physician, he came

ng, active body of a man, virile and with an atmosphere almost hypnotic. His forehead was good, his jaw hard, his nose arched

bout the fireplace of my parlor, I w

y experience, albeit I'm but fifteen years your senior and not therefore as old as a hill, that no man uproots a habit after he has reached middle age. While climbing, mentally, physically, nervously, the slope of his years and adding to, not taking from, his strength, a man may so far re-draw himself as to make or break an appetite-the appetite of strong drink-if you will

inations, that I was born to live and die, like my grandsire, the victim of drink. I was its thrall, bound to it as I lay in my cradle; there existed no gate of escape. This I told; not joyously, I promise you, or as one reciting go

lly Doctor shook h

ould add, too, that for some it carries neither power nor worth. Still, it will do no harm, and since we may have a test of its virtues within

experiment. My bent for drink was in that degree peculiar that I was not so much its disciple who must worship constantly and every day, as one of those who are given to sprees. Often and of choice I was a stranger to so much a

, he placed on the table a little bottle of

t it. The remedy is well known and I oft marvel it has had no wider vogue. As I've told you, and on the principle, probably, that one man's poison is a

se of calling for it if I did. Absolutely, the anxiety was absent; and since I had resolved not to force the bottle upon myself, but to give the Jolly Doctor and his drug all proper show to gain a victory, I made no alcohol demands. All this was y

with a free, persistent hand; softly, industriously, indomitably fell the flakes, straight down and unflurried of a wind, until the cold ligh

earliest occasion of our comradeship, while the snow sifted about the old-fashioned panes and showed through them

sperous of this world's goods and owned to a warm weakness for burgundy. He was particular to keep ever

per his story. This Sour Gentleman, like the Red Nosed Gentleman, had half retired from the cares of business. The Red Nosed Gentleman in his later days had been a stock speculator, as i

with vigorous thews still strung in the teeth of his all but four score years. He was referred to durin

he gave the title of "Sioux Sam," and whose father, he informed us, had been a French trader from

ossibly by the Red Nosed Gentleman's burgundy, which that florid person had urged upon

it was given me. It speaks broadly of the west and of the folk of cows and the Indians, and was set uppermost in my memory by the presence of our western friends." Here the Jolly Doctor indicated the Old Cattlema

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