None of them were total
abstainers, but neither had any of them the wine habit;
they were not inconvenienced, therefore, in taking
advantage of the cheapness with which total abstinence
made itself attractive, and they took it, though they
were substantial men. As one of them put it, they weren't
over there to make a splash, a thing that was pretty hard
to do in London, anyhow; and home comforts came before
anything. The conviction about the splash was perhaps a
little the teaching of circumstances. They were influential
fellows at home, who had lived for years in the atmosphere
of appreciation that surrounds success; their movements
were observed in the newspapers; their names stood for
wide interests, big concerns. They had known the
satisfaction of a positive importance, not only in their
community but in their country; and they had come to
England invested as well with the weight that is attached
to a public mission. It may very well be that they looked
for some echo of what they were accustomed to, and were
a little dashed not to find it--to find the merest
published announcement of their arrival, and their
introduction by Lord Selkirk to the Colonial Secretary;
and no heads turned in the temperance hotel when they
came into the dining-room. It may very well be.
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