self on an empty barrel and was soon fast
asleep.

It was a profound sleep, and, from time to time, the young man
trembled convulsively. He opened a gaping mouth, he muttered some
unintelligible words, but his "pals" noticed it not.

They were accustomed to such scenes,--the sight of man, who is no
more man; an animal, lower in many respects than the brute.

The sleeper was dreaming. He dreamt that he saw the same
public-house in which he now was. But, instead of being built of
granite,--as it really was,--its walls were one mass of human
beings, piled one on top of the other.

He could recognize some former companions who now were deceased.

Their bodies served instead of stones, and their souls he discerned,
placed in lieu of windows.

Amidst the horrible mass of human flesh, he saw his father's body,
crushed and terribly mangled; his face wore an expression of
suffering, his whole body seemed borne down by a heavy and
oppressive weight.

Tom Soher looked at his father. The latter cast a sad and troubled
look at his son.

All at once, the drunken man saw himself seated upon his father's
back. So this was the load that crushed him. He gazed upon his
resemblance; a mere shadow of his former self.

As he contemplated this sad picture, he saw, issuing out of his
mouth--his soul.

An inexpressible fear and a sense of suffocation seized him.

He tried to explain to himself this curious vision. "Bah! 'tis but a
dream," he muttered; "ah! someone is grasping my throat. I am
dying." He lifted his eyes towards heaven. They encountered the
ceiling.

As he sought in vain to rouse himself from that awful state of
lethargy, something within him whispered: "This house is built with
the price of bodies and of souls."

He listened eagerly. The voice was silent.

Then the awful interpretation of this strange vision dawned upon his
troubled mind. "Is it possible that I have given both my body and my
soul in exchange for drink. My soul! Alas!"

He struggled to shake himself free. Another fit of suffocation
seized him in its deathly embrace. He tried to shout or to entreat
mercy, but his tongue refused to utter a sound and his heart was as
hard and as cold as the stones over which the vehicle in which he
was lying rolled.

For Tom Soher was in a closed carriage. When closing time came, the
owner of the public-house had him placed in a conveyance and sent
home.

He realised this, as a dull, but deep-seated pain, cau