up. Now if you break off too suddenly it may be serious for you,
while if you take a little, to brace you up, such disagreeable
consequences will not follow. I hate a man to drink too much, for,
if he does, he is sure to make a fool of himself, but a little will
do any man good."

The tone and manner of Ginsling when he thus addressed Ashton was
subdued and gentlemanly, for he had not so far degenerated as to
have lost altogether the grace and polish which the refined
associations of his youth had given to him. His language, also,
sounded reasonable to the one to whom it was addressed, for,
though Ashton had become an awful example of the ultimate issue of
moderate drinking, at least in some cases, he would still argue in
its favor, and when the advocates of prohibition would point to
those who had fallen victims to the pernicious habit, he would
answer that it was the abuse and not the use of intoxicating
liquor which produces the evil.

So Ginsling, who had frequently heard him thus argue, adroitly
stole an arrow out of his own quiver, and addressed him as he had
frequently heard him address others. And there was just enough
truth mixed with the sophistry of his argument to carry conviction
to the mind of one as unstable as Ashton; for he did feel all
unnerved. He had broken off suddenly from a long-continued drunken
spree, and was beginning to have premonitions of something which
he dreaded only second to death. He had already twice suffered the
horrors of delirium tremens, and he now had good cause for fearing
another attack. It was to this Ginsling referred when he said if
he broke off suddenly it might lead to serious consequences. So,
after what seemed to be a desperate struggle--the better instincts