wife, and that her whole family had come to live with him. Clearly, to
place Josiah in a position of easy access to unlimited liquor would be
madness.

"About a laundry, on the other hand, there was something soothing. The
working of a laundry needed many hands. Hannah's relatives might be used
up in a laundry, and made to earn their own living. Hannah might expend
her energy in flat-ironing, and Josiah could turn the mangle. The idea
conjured up quite a pleasant domestic picture. I recommended the
laundry.

"On the following Monday, Josiah wrote to say that he had bought the
laundry. On Tuesday I read in the _Commercial Intelligence_ that one of
the most remarkable features of the time was the marvellous rise taking
place all over New England in the value of hotel and bar property. On
Thursday, in the list of failures, I came across no less than four
laundry proprietors; and the paper added, in explanation, that the
American washing industry, owing to the rapid growth of Chinese
competition, was practically on its last legs. I went out and got drunk.

"My life became a curse to me. All day long I thought of Josiah. All
night I dreamed of him. Suppose that, not content with being the cause
of his domestic misery, I had now deprived him of the means of earning a
livelihood, and had rendered useless the generosity of that good old sea-
captain. I began to appear to myself as a malignant fiend, ever
following this simple but worthy man to work evil upon him.

"Time passed away, however; I heard nothing from or of him, and my burden
at last fell from me.