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Every one chattered, argued, discussed, disputed, applauded, from the gentleman lounging upon the barroom settee with his tumbler of sherry-cobbler before him down to the waterman who got drunk upon his "knock-me-down" in the dingy taverns of Fell Point. About two A.M., however, the excitement began to subside.
I think this "cock-tail and sherry-cobbler" art criticism of to-day is very deleterious to the digestion, and that the piety and enthusiasm which Duerer and Reynolds worked into their art were more wholesome, and better supplied the needs and deficiencies of artistic temperaments.
I am not disposed to look so severely upon young Harry's conduct and idleness, as his friend the stern Colonel of the Twentieth Regiment. O blessed idleness! Divine lazy nymph! Reach me a novel as I lie in my dressing-gown at three o'clock in the afternoon; compound a sherry-cobbler for me, and bring me a cigar! Dear slatternly, smiling Enchantress!
My tin cup would wait a long time on that little shelf; yet "Pills," as the sailors called him, never heeded my lingering, but in sober, silent sadness continued pounding his mortar or folding up his powders; until at last some other customer would appear, and then in a sudden frenzy of resolution, I would gulp clown my sherry-cobbler, and carry its unspeakable flavour with me far up into the frigate's main-top.
It was a national enterprise; the high town, low town, the quays bathed by the waters of the Patapsco, the ships, imprisoned in their docks, overflowed with crowds intoxicated with joy, gin, and whisky; everybody talked, argued, perorated, disputed, approved, and applauded, from the gentleman comfortably stretched on the bar-room couch before his glass of "sherry-cobbler" to the waterman who got drunk upon "knock-me-down" in the dark taverns of Fell's Point.
Then there was a little, low consulting at the door with the renowned "ship's doctor," who positively refused to approach me because he had just come from a case of ship-fever in the steerage, which he feared to communicate to one in my precarious state, but who sent in his imperative orders that I should have soup and sherry-cobbler forthwith, and try and build up my strength for the time of debarkation speaking in a low, growling voice divested of its former clearness, but still strangely resembling that of Basil Bainrothe!
"Said so. I reckon, stranger, we can get up a mint-julep on board this here boat equal to either Saint Charles or Verandah, if not a leetle superior to either." "A superb drink!" "We can mix a sherry-cobbler too, that ain't hard to take." "I have no doubt of it, but I'm not fond of sherry. I prefer this." "You're right. So do I. The pine-apple's a new idea, but an improvement, I think."
They were, moreover, great horse-racers and cock-fighters, mighty wrestlers and jumpers, and enormous consumers of hoe-cake and bacon. They lay claim to be the first inventors of those recondite beverages, cock-tail, stone-fence, and sherry-cobbler, and to have discovered the gastronomical merits of terrapins, soft crabs, and canvas-back ducks.
Men are so much alike in their nature, that they grow intolerable unless varied by their circumstances. Just about this time a waiter entered my room. The truth was, I had rung the bell and ordered a sherry-cobbler. "Can you tell me," I inquired, "what families reside in any of those houses opposite?" "The one right opposite is a rather stylish boarding-house," said the waiter.
The discriminating visitor will decidedly prefer to receive his sandwich and glass of bitter at the hands of a pretty barmaid rather than from an oleaginous pot-man in his shirt-sleeves; and the sherry-cobbler acquires a racier flavour from the arch looks of the Hebe who dispenses it.
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