that I have reason to remember this individual to the
very last day of my life. Would to heaven that I had never met him!

This youth slapped me familiarly on the shoulder, and said--

"Hallo, bub! why, you're wet as a drowned rat! Come and take a brandy
cocktail--it will warm you up!"

I had never drank a drop of liquor in my life, and I hadn't the faintest
idea of what a brandy cocktail was, and so I told my new friend, who
laughed immoderately as he exclaimed--

"How jolly green you are, to be sure; why, you're a regular _greenhorn_,
and I'm going to call you by that name hereafter. Have you got any tin?"

I knew that he meant money, and so I told him that I had but a sixpence
in the world.

"Bah!" cried my friend, as he drew his cigar from his mouth and
salivated in the most fashionable manner, "who are you, what are you and
what are you doing here? Come, tell me all about yourself, and it may
perhaps be in my power to do you a service."

His frank, off-hand manner won my confidence. I told him my whole story,
without any reserve; and he laughed uproariously when I told him how I
had pitched my tyrannical uncle down stairs.

"It served the old chap right," said he approvingly--"you are a fellow
of some spirit, and I like you. Come take a drink, and we can afterwards
talk over what is best to be done."

I objected to drink, because I had formed a strong prejudice against
ardent spirits, having often been a witness of its deplorable effects in
depriving men--and women, too--of their reason, and reducing them to the
condition of brute beasts. So, in declining my friend's invitation, I
told him my reasons for so doing, whereupon he laughed louder than ever,
as he remarked--

"Why, _Greenhorn_, you'd make an excellent temperance lecturer. But
perhaps you think I haven't got any money to pay the rum. Look
here--what do you think of _that_?"

He displayed a large roll of bank bills, and flourished them
triumphantly. I had never before seen so much money, except in the
broker's windows; and my friend was immediately established in my mind
as a _millionaire_, whose wealth was inexhaustible. I suddenly conceived
for him the most profound respect, and would not have offended him for
the world. How could I persist in refusing to drink with a young
gentleman of such wealth, and (as a necessary consequence) such
distinction? Besides, I suddenly felt quite a curiosity to drink some
liquor, just to see how it tasted.