The retail dealer who had invited me to take a glass of beer with him
had been rather stiff in his own store, but the moment he turned the
key in the lock he seemed to throw away his coldness and became very
talkative. We sat down at a table and our beer was brought.

I doubt if any traveling man ever became a drunkard, because of the
drinking necessary to be done among his customers. A little of it
appears to be really necessary. But this little would lead no one to
excess. The men who drink to excess are those who patronize bars with
other traveling men, and who drink alone. The temptation is great.
Every hotel has its bar; all introductions and intimacies have to be
sealed with a drink, and the man who does not feel bright, or fancies
he does not, has a row of bright bottles beckoning to him to "brace
up" with a glass of their contents.

I do not wonder that the pulpits and all thoughtful people cry out
against the drinking of liquor. Every traveling man's experience, the
tales he could tell of the financial and moral ruin of men from
drinking, and men who are usually the most intelligent and who ought
to be the most influential, are all in the line of the injunction to
taste not the accursed stuff. I say this after years of experience; I
felt it on my first trip, but I was so anxious to ingratiate myself
into the good graces of every man I wanted to sell to that I drank
with customers when asked, and when it seemed wise invited them to
indulge with me.

Do you say that the foolishness of this was that I must continue it
each trip and do more each time? No, you are not correct. I had less
occasion for it the next and each succeeding trip. I was able to meet