“Bzzzzz,” said Mr. Bar Fly. and plumped his black body on a nearly bald customer in the Blue Moon Tavern. He made a perfect six point landing and took a look around. The air was heavy with the blue haze of cigarette smoking patrons. The stench of firewater was strong and unnerving. Tin-pan music harking back to the days of the jungle savage blared forth from the jukebox in the corner. At one side customers were spending their coins in the gaudy one-armed bandits—pin-ball machines. Loud laughter and sensual jests floated back and forth like batted balls in mid–air.

   

Suddenly Mrs. Bar Fly came floating from nowhere and landed beside her husky husband. She was more delicate and genteel, whereas Mr. Bar Fly was broad-shouldered, deep-chested and disgustingly masculine.

Mrs. Bar Fly fluffed her cellophane wings and sniffed the air disapprovingly. “Nothing like the green meadows sprinkled with flowers and colored by a thousand pretty sunsets and sunrises,” she complained, so loudly that the patrons dropped their mugs (beer mugs, that is) and looked to see who was talking. And when they spied the flies atop Peter Patter’s head, they started shooing and shouting from all directions until even the barkeep was at his wit’s end.

“Set ‘em up! This one’s on the house!” he bellowed, thrusting forth his gorilla frame, with a foam-capped mug in each hand. The patrons settled down to the “suds” and guzzled the burning liquid till everybody had bottoms up. Then here and there a customer ordered a second or a third or a “set–up” for his partner.

But the lull in the storm was short-lived. Mr. Bar Fly buzzed and flitted about till the incident had passed, then landed on the smoke-smudged fluorescent light overhead. And to his surprise, his dear delicate little fly-wife had preceded him there by a few wing flips. “Don‘t think one drink will hurt you,” argued Mr. Bar Fly in his deep bass voice, as loud as a bass drum.

“You know better than that,” piped up Mrs. Bar Fly. “First a man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes the man.”

By this time, the barkeep had stumbled backwards, broken seventeen bottles of fermented swill, and worked himself into a froth.

“Dose flies, I’ll kill ‘em dead, if it’s the next thing I do.”

But his audience only tittered, amused at his fury.

Mrs. Fly, true to her feminine instincts, followed through with another punch to her husband‘s notions. “Learn your A.B.C’s,” she remonstrated, “and remember that liquor;—A–rms more villains, B–reaks more laws. C-corrupts more officials, D-estroys more homes, E-ngulfs more fortunes, F-fills more jails, C-rows more grey hairs, H-arrows more hearts, I–ncites more crime, J-eopardizes more lives, K–indles more strife, L-acerates more feelings, M-aims more bodies, (she seemed to catch her breath, and then continued) N-ails down more coffins, O-pens more graves, P-ains more mothers, Q-uenches more songs, R-aises more sobs, S-ells more virtue, T-ells more lies, U-ndermines more youth, V-eils more widows, W–recks more men, Xcites more passion, Y–ields more disgrace, Z-eroes more hopes than any other enemy of mankind.”

Mr. Bar Fly was stunned at his wife’s longwinded harangue. For a moment he didn’t have a reply. Meanwhile the folk in the tavern were becoming uneasy, especially the less hardened type of drinker. Their thoughts went back to warnings of mothers and fathers and pastors who were interested in their souls‘ well-being. But the uncanny voice from a fly‘s mouth had them all puzzled and for the moment stupefied. However, the barkeep was battling away once more. Climbing on the marble bar he struck out with a folded newspaper in an attempt to stop the prating of the preaching flies which wasn‘t doing his business any good. But his terrific WHAM missed lire and he fell like a weighted cargo right on the laps of a knot of agitated customers.

“Quit flying around after those flies,” they hooted. “You know you‘re too light for heavy work.”

The amused patrons guffawed while the barkeep picked up his scattered parts and assembled his wits and his dignity.

Settled once more behind the semicircular bar, he felt better, at least in part. But a squeaky feminine fly voice set the butterflies in his stomach in motion again. Mr. Fly had just started to say something–in fact the words had just begun to form in his voice box when Mrs. Fly continued her tirade with, “O you realize that three out of ten beginning drinkers, who just wanted to be sociable, become drunkards? And that four of the seven who didn‘t become real drunkards, died before they were fifty?”

Mr. Fly retorted, “But—but—”

But Mrs. Fly wasn’t through. She continued to inform her fly husband that, “Forty to forty-five percent of all insane and feeble-minded folk have an alcohol history; and that nearly ninety percent of all crime can be traced to alcohol in some form; while more deaths and diseases are due to alcohol than any other force of evil.”

The patrons in the audience were mystified. Peter Patter the barkeep lifted his head and gave the flies on the light fixture a bleary look of amazement. His feelings were pounding about inside him like the gyrator in the tub of a washing machine. But he was sobering to the fact that he wasn’t of an age any more where he could play leapfrog.

Mr. Fly slowly took courage. “But Missus,” he drawled, “surely a little sniff of the amber stuff doesn’t hurt much, does it? Now really?”

Mrs. Fly gave him an oblique look and retorted “It doesn’t take much to set the brain awhirl; .02% of alcohol in the blood–Deceptively dry; .05% of alcohol in the blood—Doubtfully decent; .1% of alcohol in the blood—Delightfully devilish; .2% of alcohol in the blood—Disgustingly delinquent; .3% of alcohol in the blood—Decidedly drunk; A% of alcohol in the blood—Dead drunk.”

“You see,” reiterated Mrs. Fly, “human beings, like pins, are useless when they lose their heads. That accounts no doubt for the fact that it has been proved that about half of all accidental drownings are alcohol-related.”

By this time the barkeep was desperate. He had hauled out a spray gun loaded with D.D.T. and aimed it squarely at Mr. and Mrs. Bar Fly. But they, nimble creatures, were gone before the death mist hit the spot where they had sat and the down-spray landed instead in the gullets of his imbibing customers who fretted and fumed, “Stop it, Jet the flies have their say. Maybe they’ve got something better for our health than that death–dew you‘re spraying around.”

The next time the fly-voices were heard, they came right from the top of the barkeep‘s head. Much to his consternation they were literally in his black, crinkly hair. Mrs. Fly piped up with:

“A noted drinker of the country town: Just listen a moment to what he drank down, He drank up his crops before they matured, Drank a yoke a oxen, by his appetite lured, Six cows, four horses, one pig, and a goat, All traveled down the road of his throat. He drank up his chicks while still in the shell, While hopes of high heaven he drank up as well, He said he could drink, or leave it alone— Part of the statement was true, we must own; For he drank up his farm, he trifled with God, Now all that he owns is six feet of sod.

About by the time Mrs. Fly had ended the quote, the harkeep was wiggling his head trying to shake off the pests. But the two winged creatures simply flew to another section of the tavern. For soon right from between the giddy array of bottles of every size and description their voices could be heard in a sort of an undertone. It was again the feminine voice of Mrs. Bar Fly: “It is significant that with the recent increased consumption of alcohol in the United States, prostitution is flourishing, and all agree that in the past few years there has been a deplorable rise in the incidence of venereal disease. Since the repeal of Federal and State prohibition laws the old alliance between prostitution and the saloon has been renewed with enthusiasm on both sides. The public drinking places definitely favor the traffic in sexual relationships.”

The funereal tone of the fly-voice from somewhere behind the bottles troubled many a heart that was hell–bound via the road of liquor and lust. Young faces, too young to be in such places, lifted a questioning glance in the direction of the fly-voice. A few of the patrons got up and walked out –troubled and ill at ease. But alcohol, a true narcotic—not a stimulant according to medical science—held them in its vise-like grip. A few wished to leave it alone, but they could not. Others were there trying to drown their sorrows, for they were to cowardly to face the realities of life. Some women, lustful and with evil eyes glazed with drink, sat like spiders waiting for their prey. Red Rufus only looked more bleary—took another, then another shot, and soon was taken out on a stretcher, wild and unmanageable with his recurrent delirium tremens (trembling madness). It wasn‘t the first time. It may have been his last. Science knows a being can stand only a few of those terrible snake-seeing, nerve-wracking, soul-shaking experiences.

Amid it all, the barkeep wiped his furrowed brow, cursed audibly, spat angrily, and fumed like a bull moose at bay. The whole series of talks by two flies was utterly unnerving and he has wondering if he himself was on the verge of delirium tremens. But he kept his poise somehow. He must.

Mr. Fly suddenly rose from behind the varicolored bottles, flew to the ceiling, and stuka–dived past the nose of the barkeep. The barkeep only grunted this time, and kept his anger tucked in his bosom.

Once again the voice of Mrs. Fly filled the room. This time in Scriptural dignity: “Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor DRUNKARDS, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6:9).

An awed silence crept over the audience in the tavern. The Word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, cut sharp and deep in the hearts of many of the listeners. Not a few had knowledge of better days. Others were just drifters on the sea of life. God may have had some of his elect even in this den of iniquity. Who knows?

A sudden commotion stirred in the room. A mysterious character rose from his place in the corner, donned his hat, and went to the door. Mrs. Bar Fly spread her cellophane wings and made her exit with this same stranger—winging her way back to the open fields, the healthful ozone where fragrant flowers bloomed and the sparkling sunshine basks the land in a halo of glory.

In the tavern the barkeep came to his senses. He had seen the sudden exit of the mysterious stranger and Mrs. Fly. In an instant he got from behind the bar and walked to the seat in the comer which the stranger had occupied. On the small table he saw a tall glass, lifted it and smelled. “COLORED WATER,” he shouted aloud. By this time the rest of the tavern audience was looking in the direction of the barkeep. They watched him as he picked up a white calling card which lay beside the glass of colored water. “OH, that’s it. That’s the secret,” he exclaimed.

“What’s that?” the patrons wanted to know.

The barkeep was excited. “Oh, you know, all that talk by those rues, yes, yes?”

“Out with it,” the patrons snorted.

“Here,” exclaimed the barkeep,” his card says he‘s Happie Hartwell, a Christian ventriloquist, a man that throws the voice.”

“Ahhhh! Oooooooh!” they all exclaimed.

“Yes, and a teetotaller at that. He drank only colored water, no spirits,” protested the barkeep vigorously.

The next instant a black object swished through the air and settled on the marble bar, licking up the drops of spilled liquor. The barkeep banged his burly fist on the hated object. It was none other than Mr. Bar Fly. Dead. DEAD as a drunkard’s hope of heaven.

The technical facts in this story were obtained from circulars furnished by the late Marie Gezon, secretary of the Christian Guidance Bureau; Women’s Christian Temperance Union pamphlets, etc.