friends. And I will drink _your_ good health, and your family's, and may
you live long and prosper." And now come the Progressive Nuisances, and
ask Mr. JEFFERSON to change this ending so that it will read as
follows:--

GRETCHEN.--"Here is your glass, RIP."

RIP.--"But I swore off."

GRETCHEN.--"Bless you, my husband. Promise me never more to touch the
intoxicating beer-mug."

RIP.--"I promise. Hereafter I will take my TUPPER'S Proverbial
Philosophy and my glass of water, and I will daily address all my
friends on the subject of total abstinence from everything that cheers,
whether it inebriates or not. And I will now close this evening's
lecture by an appeal to the audience now present, to take warning by me,
and never drink a drop of lager-beer. Think, my friends, what would be
the feelings of your respective wives, should you return home, after a
drunken sleep of twenty or thirty years, and find them all married to
richer husbands! Think how they would revile the weakness of the beer
which could not keep you asleep forever. Think how you would complicate
the real estate business, when you came to turn out the mistaken people
who had occupied, improved, and sold your property during your brief
absence. Think of the difficulties that would arise from the increase in
the size of your families, which would probably have taken place while
you were sleeping out in the open air, and for which you would have to
provide, although you had not been consulted in the matter. Think, too,
of the extent to which you would be interviewed by the reporters of the
_Sun_, and the atrocious libels concerning yourselves and your families