FATHER MATTHEW




THE CHRISTENING

"Well doctor, a little brandy?"

"With pleasure."

The old ship's surgeon, holding out his glass, watched it as it slowly
filled with the golden liquid. Then, holding it in front of his eyes, he
let the light from the lamp stream through it, smelled it, tasted a few
drops and smacked his lips with relish. Then he said:

"Ah! the charming poison! Or rather the seductive murderer, the
delightful destroyer of peoples!

"You people do not know it the way I do. You may have read that admirable
book entitled L'Assommoir, but you have not, as I have, seen alcohol
exterminate a whole tribe of savages, a little kingdom of
negroes--alcohol calmly unloaded by the barrel by red-bearded
English seamen.

"Right near here, in a little village in Brittany near Pont-l'Abbe, I
once witnessed a strange and terrible tragedy caused by alcohol. I was
spending my vacation in a little country house left me by my father. You
know this flat coast where the wind whistles day and night, where one
sees, standing or prone, these giant rocks which in the olden times were