THE BEAR THAT DRANK.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 2182, 11 July 1890, Page 5

THE BEAR THAT DRANK.

" I never told you, I believe," said Grandfather Lickshingle, "of the experience I once bad with a dancing bear." The reporter thought he had heard the wonderful 1 story, but grandfather was certain he had not, and went on with the recital.

" When I was a young man out on the Rio Grande, where I want to make my fortune, I played in pretty hard luck, and it came to be a toss-up whether I would starve tc death out there or go back home, and go to work on the farm. Among the other enterprises that I turned my hand to I got hold of a dancing bear, and used to go arouad giving street exhibitions. This was one of the best things I struck.

" I called the bear Gabriel because he could blow a horn to wake the dead. Dance ? Well, you couldn't read of a dance, I don't care if it was out of a society book, that Gabriel wouldn't tackle. I was young and foolish then, and this streak of good luck I had with the dancing bear sort of turned my head, and every once in a while I would go off on a little jamboree.

" One night I did a very foolish thing. I got to drinking with a Mexican named O'Pake, who kept a saloon up the river from El Paso, and we both got very giddy. Gabriel always fell in very easy with any disreputable habits of mine, and it did not take much coaxing to get him drinking beer with us.

" Welt, sir, the bear began to get drank, and then we had a circus. He had seen me on several toots, and being an imitative cuss anyhow his drunkenness was almost human. He would waltz on his hind legs, hold his tin horn between his paws and blow like a ferryboat in a fog, and growl and roar and yelp for all the world like a man with a jag on. I tell you the human intelligence that bear exhibited when he was undsr the influence of strong drink was something wonderful.

" When I daw Gabriel was getting too full I tried to shut off the beer on him, but hanged if he would have it that way. We had a pan uider the faucat that we run his beer into so he could get at it easy, and when I tried to take the pan away he made a pasa at me with his paw, and I was glad to let it alone. When we refused to turn the faucet and run more beer into his pan, darn me if he didn't turn it himself, and he didn't stop with any moderate drinks, either.

" I tried to reason with the inebriated cuss, but the more I reasoned with him the meaner he got. He could understand pretty much all I said, and I pointed out to him in simple language the danger that lurked in the flowing bowl. I gave him fair warning about looking upon the wine when it was red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. I told him it was bad enough for a human being to put an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brains, but when it came to an intelligent educated cinnamoa bear, it was indeed a deplorable spectacle, Gabriel uttered a loud snort, as if to blow all my high moral precepts to the four winds, gave the spigot a twist and took a long pull at the pan. Then he backed out from behind the bar, cavorted around the room, and acted up to beat anything you ever saw.

" Intelligent 1 Well, I never saw anything like it. 'Now G-abriel/ I would say to him, ' enough is enough, and I think you have it. I told him how some of ouc most brilliant minds had been wrecked by strong drink, and tried to coax him to go to bed. But no, si-, Gibe wouldn't do it. He would lounge around behind the bar, twist the spigot, and guzz'e a quart or so of stale beer. Ouce the very Old Scratch got into him and he undertook to have fun with the proprietor. Ha waltz )d up to him after the style of Sullivan, made a feint as if he would slug him in the stomach, and then fetched him a swipe alongside of the head that sent the Mexicau heeh over apple cart out into the back yard among a lot of empty kegs and boxes.

•• Well, sir, G ibriel kept up this razzledazzle a3 long as there was any beqr left. Then he got mad, brokj all the bottles in the pace, drove the Mexican out on the river bank, and then lay down iv the yard ani slept like a sawlog till

noon the next day. Sick 1 Well, he was the sickest bear you ever saw. He was sick all over and clear through. His hair stood the wrong way, and the look in his eyes indicated that sad-eyed sorrow sat upon his soul. I thought if I could get him into the saloon so he could see the ruin he had wrought there the night before it would impress Mm with the folly of drink, but he wouldn't go in. I had to pay the Mexican 70 dols. for broken bottles and fixtures, and it took me two days to get Gabriel in shape for business, but it was a week before he could do a song and dance with me that had any soul in it."