ike yourself; I
tell you, Archer, if Tim ever dies of thirst, it must be where there is
nothing wet, but water!"

"Now hark to the old scoundrel, Frank," said Archer, "hark to him pray,
and if he doesn't out-eat both of us, and out-drink anything you ever
saw, may I miss my first bird to-morrow--that's all! Give me a slice of
beef, Frank; that old Goth would cut it an inch thick, if I let him
touch it; out with a cork, Tom! Here's to our sport to-morrow!"

"Uh; that goes good!" replied Tom, with an oath, which, by the apparent
gusto of the speaker, seemed to betoken that the wine had tickled his
palate--"that goes good! that's different from the darned red trash you
left up here last time."

"And of which you have left none, I'll be bound," answered Archer,
laughing; "my best Latour, Frank, which the old infidel calls trash."

"It's all below, every bottle of it," answered Tom: "I wouldn't use such
rot-gut stuff, no, not for vinegar. 'Taint half so good as that red
sherry you had up here oncet; that was poor weak stuff, too, but it did
well to make milk punch of; it did well instead of milk."

"Now, Frank," said Archer, "you won't believe me, that I know; but it's
true, all the same. A year ago, this autumn, I brought up five gallons
of exceedingly stout, rather fiery, young brown sherry--draught wine,
you know!--and what did Tom do here, but mix it, half and half, with
brandy, nutmeg, and sugar, and drink it for milk punch!"

"I did so, by the eternal," replied Tom, bolting a huge lump of beef, in
order to enable himself to answer--"I did so, and good milk punch it
made, too, but it was too weak! Come, Mr. Forester, we harn't drinked
yet, and I'm kind o' gittin dry!"

And now the mirth waxed fast and furious--the champagne speedily was
finished, the supper things cleared off, hot water and Starke's
Ferintosh succeeded, cheroots were lighted, we drew closer in about the
fire, and, during the circulation of two tumblers--for to this did Harry
limit us, having the prospect of unsteady hands and aching heads before
him for the morrow--never did I hear more genuine and real humor, than
went round our merry trio.

Tom Draw, especially, though all his jokes were not such altogether as I
can venture to insert in my chaste paragraphs, and though at times his
oaths were too extravagantly rich to brook repetition, shone forth
resplendent. No longer did I wonder at what I had before deemed Harry
Archer's strange hallucina