"What'll the boy have?"
"Nothing, thank you," answered Ben, startled,
"That won't do. I insist upon your drinking," hiccuped the young
man, who had evidently drunk freely already. "Take it as a personal
insult, if you don't."
"Never mind the boy," said his new friend, to Ben's great relief.
"He's young and innocent. He hasn't been round like you an' me."
"That's so," assented the young man, taking the remark as a
compliment. "Well, here's to you!"
"I wouldn't have done it," said Ben's new friend rejoining him; "but
it'll help me to forget what a blamed fool I've been to-night. You
jest let the drink alone. That's my advice,"
"I mean to," said Ben firmly. "Do people drink much out here?"
"Whisky's their nat'ral element," said the miner. "Some of 'em don't
drink water once a month. An old friend of mine, Joe Granger,
act'lly forgot how it tasted. I gave him a glass once by way of a
joke, and he said it was the weakest gin he ever tasted."
"Are there no temperance societies out here?" asked Ben.
The miner laughed.
"It's my belief that a temperance lecturer would be mobbed, or hung
to the nearest lamppost," he answered.
It is hardly necessary to say that even in 1856 intemperance was
hardly as common in California as the statements of his new friend
led Ben to suppose.
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