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since I have taken a drink. In six years, six months, and a few minutes it will be ten years. Then I shall begin to feel I have some standing among the chaps who have quit. Three years and a half seems quite a period of abstinence to me, but I am constantly running across men who have been on the wagon for five and ten and twelve and twenty years; and I know, when it comes to merely not taking any, I am a piker as yet. However, I have well-grounded hopes. The fact is, a drink could not be put into me except with the aid of an anesthetic and a funnel; but, for all that, I am no bigot.
I look at this non-drinking determination of mine as a purely individual proposition. Let me get the stage set properly at the beginning of my remarks. I have no advice to offer and no counsel to give. Most of my best friends drink and I never have said and never shall say them nay. It is up to them--not up to me. I have no prejudices in the matter. If my friends want to drink I am for that--for them.
These things are mentioned to establish my status in the premises. I have no sermon to preach--no warning to convey. I have no desire to impress my convictions on the subject of drinking liquor on any person whatever. That is not my mission. So far as I am concerned, all persons are hereby given full and free permission to eat, drink and be merry to such extent as they may prescribe for themselves. I set no limit, suggest no reforms, urge no cutting down or cutting out. Go to it--and peace be with you! And for an absolute teetotaler I reckon I buy as many drinks for others as any one in my class.
Pardon me for inserting these puny details in what I have to say. Triflingly personal as they are they seem necessary in order to establish my viewpoint. So far as drinking is concerned I look at it with a mind that is open and tolerant--except in one instance. That one instance concerns myself personally and individually. My mind is closed and intolerant in my own case. I have quit--and quit forever; but that does not make