"
"Throth an' you will this time," said Harte, "undher this roof spirits
won't crass; your lips, an' you know for why."
"I know but one thing," replied Art, "that as you said yourself, if it
was vitriol, I'd dhrink it for the best brother that ever lived; I only
promised him that I wouldn't get dhrunk, an' sure, drinkin' a glass o'
whiskey, or three either, wouldn't make me dhrunk--so hand it here."
"Well, Art," said Harte, "there's one man you can't blame for this, and
that is Syl Harte."
"No, Syl, never--but now, boys, I am ready."
"Frank Maguire's health! hip, hip, hurra!"
Thus was a fine, generous-minded, and affectionate young man--who
possessed all the candor and absence of suspicion which characterize
truth--tempted and triumphed over, partly through the very warmth of
his own affections, by a set of low, cunning profligates, who felt only
anxious to drag him down from the moral superiority which they felt
he possessed. That he was vain, and fond of praise, they knew, and our
readers may also perceive that it was that unfortunate vanity which
gave them the first advantage over him, by bringing him, through its
influence, among them. Late that night he was carried home on a door, in
a state of unconscious intoxication.
It is utterly beyond our power to describe the harrowing state of
his sensations on awakening the next morning.
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