e open
window where I sat I felt a bean take me sharply in the nape of the
neck, and, turning, I discovered Captain Pharo outside. He winked at
me. I naively winked back again. He coughed low and meaningly; I
smiled and nodded.

He disappeared, and ere long I felt one of my ears tingling from the
blow of another bean. It was Uncle Coffin this time; his wink was
almost savage with excess of meaning. I returned it amiably. He
coughed low and hopelessly, and disappeared.

But soon after he came walking nonchalantly into the room.

"Dodrabbit ye, major!" said he, punching me with a vigorous hand,
"don't ye take no interest in a man's stock? Come along out and look
at the stock."

At that I rose and followed him. Captain Pharo was waiting for us.
They did not speak, but they led the way straight as the flight of an
arrow to the barn, walked undeviatingly across the floor, lifted me
solemnly ahead of them up the ladder to the hay-mow, stumbled across it
to the farthest and darkest corner, dived down into it and brought up
an ancient pea-jacket, unrolled it, and produced from the pocket a
bottle, labelled with what I at once knew to be Uncle Coffin's own
design:

"RAT PISON TO TOUCH HER IS DETH."

"Drink!" said Uncle Coffin.

All his former levity was gone. He had the look of bestowing, and
Captain Pharo of witnessing bestowed, upon another, a boon inestimable,
priceless, rare.

A temperate familiarity with the use of the cup informed me at once of
the nature of this liquid. It was whiskey of a very vile quality.

But even had it contained something akin to the dark sequel on its
label, I could not have refused it from Uncle Coffin's hand.

Slightly I drank. Captain Pharo drank. Uncle Coffin drank.

The bottle was replaced, and we as solemnly descended.

I had never been unwarily affected, even by a much larger quantity of
the pure article; perhaps by way of compensation an electric spark from
Uncle Coffin's own personality had entered into this compound. More
likely still, it was the radiant atmosphere.

But I remembered standing out leaning against the pig-pen, with Captain
Pharo and Uncle Coffin, of nudging and being nudged by them into
frequent excess of laughter over some fondly rambling anecdote or
confiding witticism, until Captain Pharo, "taking the sun," decided to
put off until some other day going to the Point to get a nail put in
the horse's shoe.

I remembered--well might I, for