HOW BILLY TOOK HIS LAGER.
THE following German story is too good not to be read by American boys and girls, so here it is in English.
"Boy Billy" was the adopted son of one Christian Zende, who was much shocked one day at seeing the boy in a lager-beer saloon, taking off a foaming glass of beer. He bade the boy go home, but said nothing till evening. After tea, Zende seated himself at the table, and placed before him a variety of queer things. Billy looked on with curiosity.
"Come here, Billy," said Christian Zende. "Why were you in the beer-shop today? Why do you drink beer, my boy?”
"O-O—because it's good," said Billy, boldly.
"No, Billy, it is not good to the mouth. I did see never so big faces as you did make. Billy, you think it will taste good by and by, and it looks like a man to drink, and so you drink. Now, Billy, if it is good, have it. I will not hinder you from what is good and manly, but drink it at home, take your drink pure, Billy, and let me pay for it. Come, my boy! You like beer. Well, open your mouth. I have all the beer stuff, pure from the shops. Come, open your mouth, and I will put it in."
Billy drew near, but kept his mouth close shut.
Said Zende, "Don't you make me mad, Billy.
Open your mouth."
Thus exhorted, Billy opened his mouth, and Zende put a small bit of alum in it. Billy drew up his face. A bit of aloes followed. This was worse. Billy winced. The least morsel of red pepper now, from a knife point, made Billy howl.
"What ! not like beer!" said Zende, "Open your mouth." A knife point dipped in oil of turpentine, made Billy cry.
"Open your mouth; the beer is not half made yet."
And Billy's tongue got the least dusting of lime and potash and saleratus. Billy now cried loudly.
Then came a grain of liquorice, hop pollen, and saltpetre.
"Look, Billy! Here is some arsenic and some strychnine, these belong to beer. Open your mouth!"
"I can't, I can't," roared Billy. " Arsenic and strychnine are to kill rats! I shall die! O-O-
O—do you want to kill me, Father Zende?"
"Kill him! Just by a little beer, all good and pure! He tells me he likes beer, and it is manly to drink it, and when I give him some, he cries I kill him. Here is water. There is much water in beer."
Billy drank the water eagerly. Zende went on.
"There is much alcohol in beer. Here! open your mouth," and he dropped four drops of raw spirit carefully on his tongue. Billy went dancing about the room, and then ran for more water.
"Come here, the beer is not done, Billy," and seizing him, he put the cork of an ammonia bottle to his lips, then a drop of honey, a taste of sugar, a drop of molasses, a drop of gall. "There, Billy!
Here is jalap, copperas, sulphuric acid, acetic acid, and nux vomica. Open your mouth."
"Oh, no, no!" said Billy, "Let me go! I hate beer. I'll never drink any more! I'll never go in that shop again. Oh, let me go, I can't eat those things. My mouth tastes awful now. Oh, take them away, Father Zende!"
"Take them away! Take away good beer, when I have paid for it. My boy, you drank them fast, today."
"Oh, they make me sick," said Billy.
"A man drinks all these bad things mixed up in water. He gets red in the face, he gets big in his body, he gets shaky in his hands, be gets weak in his eyes, he gets mean in his manners." Billy was satisfied on the beer question.-
Little Star.