"Bring on the
beer."
Jake was the ale-boy, whose business it was to supply the men with
beer from the ale-house.
"Another nuisance required by your beer business," exclaimed Benjamin.
"Better by far pay a boy double price to bring water from the well,
instead of bringing that stuff to absorb your money and sodden your
brain."
"A _Water-American_, indeed!" said Mr. Watts, who heard much of the
conversation. "But will you not allow some comfort to hard-working
men?"
"Certainly; that is what I am after. There is more comfort in one
glass of pure water than there is in a whole barrel of beer. Here is
Watts, paying out four or five shillings every week for beer, when
water would cost him nothing, and he would have that amount to spend
for genuine comforts. Besides, beer unfits him to get real comfort out
of any thing, even out of his home."
"You are about right on that," replied Watts; "beer does make a class
of men most miserable. But must I discard it because some men use it
to their injury?"
"Of course you must," Benjamin answered quickly and triumphantly.
"There is where duty and right come in. The strong must bear the
infirmities of the weak, or they won't amount to much in the world."
"Many of them won't amount to much any way, beer or no beer,"
responded Watts.
"Any of them will amount to more with water than they will with beer,"
retorted Benjamin, who felt competent to support his side of the
question.
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