cupation of my companions,--a
handsome girl, with, "I guess," her lover, and a rough specimen of a
Western hunter or trader, who had already dubbed my younger companion
Captain and myself Major, and invited us both to "liquor with him." I
declined, but _the Captain_, to his evident satisfaction, frankly
accepted his offer; and whilst I mounted the box, and the horses were
changing, they entered the house together.

This is a courtesy the traveller to the South will find constantly
proffered to him by a class of honest souls, whose good-fellowship
sometimes exceeds their discretion; and I had been told it was not at
all times possible to decline the offer without risking insult. I
discovered by experience this to be one of the numerous imaginary
grievances conjured up to affright the innocent. In this, as in all
other points, I have never departed from my own habits; and although
often in remote parts of the Union strongly urged "to liquor," have
always found my declaration that it was a custom which disagreed with
me, an excuse admitted without hesitation or ill-humour.

In this, my first experiment, indeed, I had to deal with the most
punctilious specimen I ever afterwards encountered; for when, some two
hours after I had declined his request, I called for a glass of
lemonade, my friend popped his head out of the coach-window, calling out
with a most beseeching air--

"Well but, Major, I say; stop till I get out: you'll drink _that_ with
me any how, won't you?"

He was in the bar-room at my heels in a twinkling, and I need hardly say
we emptied our glasses together very cordially, although their contents
would, I fancy, in my friend's opinion, have assimilated best in a mixed
state; for, giving his _sling_ a knowing twist as I swallowed my
excellent lemonade, he observed:

"Now that's a liquor I never could bring myself to try nohow, though I'm
sometimes rather speculatin' in drink, when I'm travellin' or out on a
frolic. Poorish stuff, I calculate: but _you_ hav'nt got the dyspepsy,
have you, Major?"

I assured my friend that I was perfectly free from dyspepsia, and that
it was because I desired to continue so that I avoided any stronger
drink before dinner.

We were now summoned to our places, my companion declaring--

"It is past my logic how lemon and water can prevent dyspepsy better
than brandy and water;" adding, with a look half comic, half serious--

"But I suppose everybody will go for the Temperan