"Who says so?"

"Twice within a week I have seen them going there," was answered.

"Good heavens! No!"

"It is true, my friend. But who is safe? If we dig pits, and
conceal them from view, what marvel if our own children fall
therein?"

"My sons going to a tavern?" The man seemed utterly confounded.
"How CAN I believe it? You must be in error, sir."

"No. What I tell you is the simple truth. And if they go there--"

The man paused not to hear the conclusion of the sentence, but
went hastily from the office.

"We are beginning to reap as we have sown," remarked the
gentleman, turning to me as his agitated friend left the office.
"As I told them in the commencement it would be, so it is
happening. The want of a good tavern in Cedarville was over and
over again alleged as one of the chief causes of our want of
thrift, and when Slade opened the 'Sickle and Sheaf,' the man was
almost glorified. The gentleman who has just left us failed not in
laudation of the enterprising landlord; the more particularly, as
the building of the new tavern advanced the price of ground on the
street, and made him a few hundred dollars richer. Really, for a
time, one might have thought, from the way people went on, that