Blackmailing a Teetotaller.

Hastings Standard, Issue 275, 19 March 1897, Page 4

Blackmailing a Teetotaller.

A TRUE STORY WITH A COMIC SIDE. A correspondent writing in an English contemporary tells the following good story, and vouches for its truth : My next door neighbor, a widower, is a teetotaller. For the sake of convience I will call him Mr I. Drinkwater. He has preahed against intemperance—or, rather, in favor of total abstinence—for years, and, in support of the cause he has written columns of letters to the local newspapers daring the few years I have known him. I myself am a moderate drinker. Drinkwater admits that he has never known me overstep the limits of moderation ; nevertheless, he has often urged me to sign the pledge. In justice to the man I freely admit that he used very telling arguments, and that he himself faithfully practised what he preached. Just before Christmas we had a short spell of frosty weather, and Mr I. Drinkwater had a cold—and thereby hangs a tale. Drinkwater's cold refused to leave him. Doctors and patent medicine vendors were doing him no good, so I suggested a remedy which I had sometimes found successful is cases of this kind. I recommended him to bathe his feet in hot water, drink a stiff glass of whisky, and then go straight to bed. Drinkwater was horrified at first, but after admitting that the doctors were doing him no good, he finally agreed to give my remedy a trial. I gave him a bottle of whisky, three parts full, and then left him to his own resources. It was a cold frosty night. Drinkwater had a fire in his bedroom, and after instructing his housekeeper to provide him with a kettle, a tumbler, and a sugar bowl, he locked his bedroom door, and placed his cold feet in a bath of warm water which had been prepared for him. His next step was a singular one, but it must be remembered that Mr Drinkwater w?s totally ignorant of the method of making " toddy." He only knew that the whisky was to be made hot, so he poured the whole contents of the bottle into the kettle, and put it on the fire. When it was warmed through he filled a half-pint tumbler with the raw spirit and took a sip. It was nasty—dreadfully nasty, but Mr I. Drinkwater had a duty to perform, and he was not a man to shirk his duty under any circumstances. He added several pieces of sugar in order to make the liquid less nauseous, and, like the brave man he was, he drank spoonful after spoonful until the glass was completely drained. He soon began to feel the good effects of the medicine. He was bathed in perspiration from head to foot. " Y r ou must sweat it out," I had told him, and he was glad to find that he was sweating it out with a vengeance. He tried to reach the kettle in order to obtain a second tumblerful, but somehow or other, he had lost control of his limbs. Moreover he distinctly saw two kettles, and ho was doubtful which to use. The extraordinary phenomenon somewhat alarmed him at first, but when he saw two fires and a pair of tumblers he knew that he was dreaming. It seemed ludicrous, mid h ("actually chuckled with delight when he placed the two tumblers upon two tables, and, looking down to his feet, beheld four fat legs in twin slipper baths. " That'sh funny !" chuckled MiDrink water. " Ver' funny !" he continued a second later—at least, Sir Drinkwater thought it was a second later ; but it was not so. lie had actually fallen uslcep after uttering the first ejaculation, and had remained asleep for nearly two hours. So dreamless was his sleep; however, it seemed to him as though practically no time had elapsed between the first and second exclamations. But he was soon undeceived. What a marvellous transformation had taken place ! The fire was out, his body was like an iceberg, and when he tried to raise his feet he found that they were frozen in the bath. The water had cooled, then a thin sheet of ice had formed on the surface, and when Drinkwater awoke his ankles were held prisoners by half an inch of ice. That was not the worst. Two masked men, evidently burglars, were in the room, and they both gazed compassionately at the poor temperance speaker. They Were nevertheless kind-hearted men. They thawed Mr Drinkwater out of captivity, rubbed him with a towel, and put him carefully between blankets. Then they politely asked him where he kept his money and jewellery. Mr Drinkwater naturally declined to < lve the information they required, but when they dropjied hints about the whisky in th< k*-ctl« , and the tell • ti.tumbler, and the condition in which thi v found th» evntSenmti, lie saw that he was completely in their power. ■■We can wr.'- l>!te'--to the not»»(ra}iers as well as yon can," nd one of the burglars, threaten !!!..*!\. •■ but we're not the roves to I lit, VOU kilo \ -o We're Jj.il-l frit." Aad Mr I. Drkfcw&ter paid for it.