Yet week by week Sam looked better than in old times. Conrad Weitz, the
manager of the most popular drinking-place in the town, predicted that
there would soon have to be a change for the worse.

"He ain't drinkin' noding," said Conrad; "and a feller dat's been
drinkin' all his life can't get along midout it afterwards."

The vender of stimulants said this to Deacon Quickset, for the two men
were incessantly arguing over the liquor question, and never lost an
opportunity of bringing up a new point about it when they met by any
chance. Weitz was a public-spirited and intelligent citizen, and the
deacon believed that if his opinions about the moral nature of his
business could be changed there would be a great gain for the
temperance cause in Bruceton. Besides, Weitz was a well-to-do man and
saved a great deal of money, some of which the deacon had invested for
him, and all of which the deacon desired to handle, for he was a man of
many enterprises, and, like most other men of the kind, always had more
ways than money.

"You're all wrong about that, Weitz," said the deacon, sitting upon an
empty beer-barrel in front of the liquor-store. The deacon was
accustomed to say, with a grim smile, that he was one of the very few
men in business whose reputation would allow him to sit upon a
beer-barrel without giving rise to any suspicions.

"Deacon," said the liquor-dealer, "you hadn't ought to talk about vat
you don't understand. How long since you stopped drinkin'?"

"Now, see here, Weitz, what do you mean, to ask me a question like
that? You ought to know well enough that I never drank in my life. If I