Imagination painted the present and future in hues of dazzling radiance.

Everything was as delightful as it could be now, and would become more charming as time rolled on.

But with Abe Bolton drinking tended to develop moroseness into savagery.
"Ah, comfort me with apple-jack, and stay me with flagons of it," said Kent Edwards, setting down the jug with the circumspection of a man not yet too drunk to suspect that he is losing exact control of his legs and arms.

"That gets better the deeper down you go.

First it was like swallowing a chestnut burr; now, old hand-made Bourbon couldn't be smoother." "A man can get used to a'most anything," said Bolton.
"I get gladder every day, Abe, that I came into the army.