let it fall on the bummer's foot. He instantly dropped on the ground
and began to howl in the most heart-breaking way. A sympathizing crowd
gathered around and were going to pull his boot off; but he screamed
louder than ever and they desisted; then he fell to gasping, and between
the gasps ejaculated "Brandy! for Heaven's sake, brandy!" They poured
half a pint down him, and it wonderfully restored and comforted him.
Then he begged the people to assist him to the stage, which was done.
The express people urged him to have a doctor at their expense, but he
declined, and said that if he only had a little brandy to take along with
him, to soothe his paroxyms of pain when they came on, he would be
grateful and content. He was quickly supplied with two bottles, and we
drove off. He was so smiling and happy after that, that I could not
refrain from asking him how he could possibly be so comfortable with a
crushed foot.

"Well," said he, "I hadn't had a drink for twelve hours, and hadn't a
cent to my name. I was most perishing--and so, when that duffer dropped
that hundred-pounder on my foot, I see my chance. Got a cork leg, you
know!" and he pulled up his pantaloons and proved it.

He was as drunk as a lord all day long, and full of chucklings over his
timely ingenuity.

One drunken man necessarily reminds one of another. I once heard a
gentleman tell about an incident which he witnessed in a Californian
bar-room. He entitled it "Ye Modest Man Taketh a Drink." It was nothing
but a bit of acting, but it seemed to me a perfect rendering, and worthy
of Toodles himself. The modest man, tolerably far gone with beer and
other matters, enters a saloon (twenty-five cents is the price for
anything and everything, and specie the only money used) and lays down a
half dollar; calls for whiskey and drinks it; the bar-keeper makes change
and lays the quarter in a wet place on the counter; the modest man
fumbles at it with nerveless fingers, but it slips and the water holds
it; he contemplates it, and tries again; same result; observes that
people are interested in what he is at, blushes; fumbles at the quarter
again--blushes--puts his forefinger carefully, slowly down, to make sure
of his aim--pushes the coin toward the bar-keeper, and says with a sigh:

"Gimme a cigar!"

Naturally, another gentleman present told about another drunken man. He
said he reeled toward home late at night; made a mistake and entered the
wrong