it was too late then,
and our two poor fellows who were forward looking out were both lost.
It's very strange; don't you think so?"

"It's very sad," replied the other; "and I'm heartily sorry for it.
It's a bad job anyhow; and yet, to tell you the honest truth, I'm not so
very much surprised, for I suspect that the drink was at the bottom of
it."

"No, no; you're quite mistaken there. I never saw either the mate or
the man at the wheel, or any of the men who were then on deck, drunk, or
anything like it, during the whole voyage."

"That may be," said the other; "but I did not say it was drunkenness,
but the drink, that I thought was at the bottom of it. The men may have
been the worse for drink without being drunk."

"I don't understand you."

"No, I see you don't; that's the worst of it. Very few people do see
it, or understand it; but it's true. A man's the worse for drink when
he's taken so much as makes him less fit to do his work, whatever it may
be. You'll think it rather strange, perhaps, in me to say so; but I
_do_ say it, because I believe it, that more accidents arise from the
drink than from drunkenness, or from moderate drinking, as it is called,
than from drunkenness."

"How so?"

"Why, thus. A man may take just enough to confuse him, or to make him
careless, or to destroy his coolness and self-possession, without being
in the least drunk; or he may have taken enough to make him drowsy, and
so unfit to do work that wants special attention and watchfulness."

"I see what you mean," said the other.

"Perhaps you'd all been drinking an extra glass when you found
yourselves so near home."

"Why, yes. To tell you the truth, we had all of us a little more than
usual that night; and yet I'll defy any man to say that we were not all
perfectly sober."

"But yet, in my way of looking at it," said Captain Merryweather, "you
were the worse for liquor, because less able to have your wits about
you. And that's surely a very serious thing to look at for ourselves,
and our employers too; for if we've taken just enough to make us less up
to our work, we're the worse for drink, though no man can say we're
drunk. Take my advice, Thomson, and keep clear of the grog altogether,
and then you'll find your luck come back again. You'll find it better
for head, heart, and pocket, take my word for it."

"I believe you're right. I'll think of what you've said," was the
reply; and they parted.

"Jacob, my