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The basis of the potation contained in this vessel was harsh old cider, from the widow's own orchard; but its coldness and acidity were rendered innocuous by a due proportion of yet older brandy. The result of this mixture was extremely felicitous, pleasant to the taste, and producing a tingling sensation on the coats of the stomach, uncommonly delectable to so old a toper as Hugh.
The night the returns came in the liquor party, finding they had carried the county by a large majority, had a grand torch-light procession, and the "Dodger," with Capt. McWriggler, his western friend, Ald. Toper, the president of the association, Rivers, Bottlesby and Capt.
The one toper says "fusty bandias", to which the other is obliged to reply, "strike pantnere", and the Friar passes many jests on the King's want of memory, who sometimes forgets the words of action. The night is spent in this jolly pastime.
He had before laughed at the stare of bewildered disappointment of the astonished toper, and the subdued humor of Master Prout, hardly concealed by his austere exterior, but he felt no disposition to censure the severity of the regulation.
By the self-same impulse the tailor plied his needle, the blacksmith's hammer descended upon the anvil, and the dancers whirled away on feathery tiptoes; the company of soldiers broke into platoons, retreated from the stage, and were succeeded by a troop of horse, who came prancing onward with such a sound of trumpets and trampling of hoofs, as might have startled Don Quixote himself; while an old toper, of inveterate ill habits, uplifted his black bottle and took off a hearty swig.
After that we had everything of note, the bootblack boy, the toper with bottle, the woolly rabbit that squeaks when you hold it in your mouth; they all vanished as inexplicably as the lady, but I dared not tell him my suspicions, for he suspected also and his gentle heart would have mourned had I confirmed his fears.
Presently the car of Dionysus came to wreck over the body of an unconscious toper, but no one stopped to set it right; and though the hapless representative of the god howled loudly to them to stop while he extricated himself from the machine, in which he had stuck, it was in vain; the score or so of youths who were dragging it tore on, passing close by Gorgo, who noted with indignation, that the brasswork of the axles was cutting deeply into the splendid mosaic of the pavement.
One of his duties was to water the flowers on the roof. Fortunately for the flowers Nature, that summer, stood drinks with a lavishness sufficient to satisfy the most confirmed vegetable toper: otherwise every plant on our boat would have died from drought. Never one drop of water did they receive from him. He was for ever taking them water, but he never arrived there with it.
If it be so, their wonted fires are not altogether extinguished in their ashes, in their throats, I might rather say, for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be loath to venture upon. But, really, one would be glad to know where these strange figures come from.
"There is no danger of that," said Toper, "for he has committed himself, soul and body, to the liquor interest, both upon the stump and through the press; and, though a man may not be troubled with that inconvenient article called principle, yet he has, to secure success, to be somewhat consistent."
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