Complete Works of Bram Stoker Read Free Page A

kind. Any man is too good for liquor.’
    Jerry thought the conversation was getting entirely too argumentative, so he cut in -
    ‘But a little liquor needn’t be bad for a chap if he doesn’t take too much?’
    ‘Ay, there it is,’ said Parnell, ‘if he doesn’t take too much. But he does take too much, and the end is that it works his ruin, body and soul.’
    ‘Whose?’
    It was Miss M’Anaspie who asked the question, and it fell like a bombshell.
    Parnell, however, was equal to the emergency.
    ‘Whose?’ he repeated. ‘Whose? Everyone’s who begins and doesn’t know where he may leave off.’
    Miss M’Anaspie felt that she was answered, and looked appealingly at Mr Muldoon, who at once came to the rescue.
    ‘Everyone is a big word. Do you mean to tell me that every man that drinks a pint of beer or a glass of whisky, goes straight to the devil?’
    ‘No, no; indeed I do not. God forbid that I should say any such thing. But look how many men that mean only to take one glass, are persuaded to take two, and then the wits begin to go, and they take three or four, and five, ay, and more, sometimes. Why, men and women’ - he rose from his chair as he spoke, with his face all aglow, with earnestness and belief in his words, ‘look around you and see the misery that everywhere throngs the streets. See the pale, drunken, wasted-looking men, with sunken eyes, and slouching gait. Men that were once as strong and hard-working, and upright as any here, ay, and could look you in the face as boldly as any here. Look at them now! Afraid to meet your eyes, trembling at every sound; mad with passion one moment and with despair the next.’
    The tide of his thought was pouring forth with such energy that no one spoke; even Mr Muldoon was afraid at the time to interrupt him. He went on:
    ‘And the women, too, God help us all. Look at them and see what part drink plays in their wretched lives. Listen to the laughter and the cries that wake the echoes in the streets at night. You that have wives, and mothers and,’ (this with a glance at Tom and Pat) ‘sweethearts, can you hear such laughter and cries and not shudder? If you can, then when next you hear it think of what it would be for you to hear some voice that you love raised like that.’
    Mr Muldoon could not stand it any longer and spoke out:
    ‘But come now, I can’t see how all the misery and wretchedness of the world is to be laid on a simple glass of beer.’
    ‘Hear, hear,’ said Miss M’Anaspie.
    Parnell’s reply was allegorical. ‘Do you see how the oak springs from the acorn - the bird from the egg? I tell you that if there were no spirits there would be less sin, and shame, and sorrow than there is.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Muldoon. ‘It would be a beautiful world entirely, and everybody would have everything, and nobody would want nothing, and we’d all be grand fellows. Eh, Miss Margaret, what do you think?’
    ‘Hear, hear,’ said Miss M’Anaspie, more timidly than before, however, at the same time looking over at Mrs O’Sullivan, who was looking not too well pleased at her.
    ‘Ah, sir,’ said Parnell, sadly, ‘God knows that we, men and women, are not what we ought to be, and sin will be in the world, I suppose, till the time that is told. But this I say, that drink is the greatest enemy that man has on earth.’
    ‘Why, you’re quite an enthusiast,’ said Mr Muldoon; ‘one would think you were inspired.’
    ‘I would I were inspired. I wish my voice was of gold, and that I could make men hear me all over the world, and that I could make the stars ring again with cries against the madness that men bring upon themselves.’
    ‘Upon my life,’ said Mr Muldoon, ‘you should be on the stage. You have missed your vocation. By the way, what is your vocation?’
    ‘I am a hatter.’
    Miss M’Anaspie blurted out suddenly, ‘Mad as a hatter,’ and then suddenly got red in the face, and shut up completely as she saw her employer’s eye