-37, he says:--

"Reader, have you ever entered the respectable saloon? Have you
ever watched the stupid stare of the inebriate when the eye grew
less and less lustrous, slowly closing, the muscles relaxing, and
the victim of appetite sinking over on the floor in beastly
drunkenness? Oh, how dense the fumes of mingled tobacco and
alcohol! Oh, what misery confined in those walls! If you have
witnessed such scenes, then we need describe no further. If you
have not, then you had not better hear the tale of woe. Imagine to
yourselves a bar-room with all its sots, and their number
multiplied indefinitely, while conscience-seared and bloated
fiends stand behind the bar, from whence they deal out death and
damnation, and the picture is complete. _One has just arrived from
earth._ He is yet uninitiated in the mysteries and miseries of
those which, like hungry lions, await him. He died while
intoxicated--was frozen while lying in the gutter, and consequently
is attracted toward this society. He possessed a good intellect,
but it was shattered beyond repair by his debauches.

" 'Ye ar' a fresh one, aint ye?' coarsely queried a sot, just then
particularly communicative.

" 'Why, yes, I have just died, as they call it, and 'taint so bad
a change after all; only I suppose there'll be dry times here for
the want of something stimulant.'

" 'Not so dry; lots of that all the time, and jolly times too.'

" 'Drink! Can you drink, then?'

" 'Yes, we just can, and feel as nice as you please. But all
can't, not unless they find one on earth just like them. You go to
earth, and mix with your chums; and when you find one whose
thoughts you can read, he's your man. Form a connection with him,
and when he gets to feeling _good_, you'll feel so too.--There, do
you understand me? I always tell all fresh ones the glorious news,
for how they would suffer if it wasn't for this blessed thing.'

" 'I'll try, no mistake.'

" 'Here's a covey,' spoke an ulcerous-looking being; 'he's of our
stripe. Tim, did you hear what an infernal scrape I got into last
night? No, you didn't. Well, I went to our friend Fred's; he
didn't want to drink when I found him; his dimes looked so
extremely large. Well, I _destroyed that feeling_, and made him
think he was dry. He drank, and drank, more th