ghly perfect, had it been kept another week. Nevertheless,
mouths were not wanting to discuss it, insipid as it was; for in three
minutes there was not a vestige to be seen of that which had offended the
organs of Sir Stentor, who now resumed his place, and did justice to the
dessert. But what he seemed to relish better than any other part of the
entertainment, was the conversation of our adventurer, whom, after
dinner, he begged to have the honour of treating with a dish of coffee,
to the seeming mortification of his brother knight, over which Fathom
exulted in his own heart.

In short, our hero, by his affability and engaging deportment,
immediately gained possession of Sir Stentor's good graces, insomuch,
that he desired to crack a bottle with him in the evening, and they
repaired to an auberge, whither his fellow-knight accompanied him, not
without manifest signs of reluctance. There the stranger gave a loose to
jollity; though at first he d---ed the burgundy as a poor thin liquor,
that ran through him in a twinkling, and, instead of warming, cooled his
heart and bowels. However, it insensibly seemed to give the lie to his
imputation; for his spirits rose to a more elevated pitch of mirth and
good-fellowship; he sung, or rather roared, the Early Horn, so as to
alarm the whole neighbourhood, and began to slabber his companions with a
most bear-like affection. Yet whatever haste he made to the goal of
ebriety, he was distanced by his brother baronet, who from the beginning
of the party had made little other use of his mouth than to receive the
glass, and now sunk down upon the floor, in a state of temporary
annihilation.

He was immediately carried to bed by the direction of Ferdinand, who now
saw himself in a manner possessor of that mine to which he had made such
eager and artful advances. That he might, therefore, carry on the
approaches in the same cautious manner, he gradually shook off the
trammels of sobriety, gave a loose to that spirit of freedom which good
liquor commonly inspires, and, in the familiarity of drunkenness, owned
himself head of a noble family of Poland, from which he had been obliged
to absent himself on account of an affair of honour, not yet compromised.

Having made this confession, and laid strong injunctions of secrecy upon
Sir Stentor, his countenance seemed to acquire from every succeeding
glass a new symptom of intoxication. They renewed their embraces,
swore eternal friendshi