"Take a brandy-toddy, Mr. H ?" said Hammond, after the discussion closed, good humoredly. "Frank, our junior bar-keeper here, beats his father, in that line." "I don't care if I do," returned the farmer; and the two passed up to the bar. "Now, Frank, my boy, don't belie my praises," said the young man; "do your handsomest." "Two brandy-toddies, did you say?"

He raised the glass to his lips, with a quick, almost eager motion, and drained it at a single draught. "Just right," said he, tossing a sixpence to the young bar-tender. "You are first rate at a brandy-toddy. Never drank a better in my life." The lad's smiling face told that he was gratified by the compliment.

He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his person.