niently in the
corner.

"Here Cuffee, you thrice-blackened baby of Beelzebub!--why stand you
there, arms akimbo, and showing your ivories, when you see we have no
whiskey! Bring in the jug, you imp of darkness--touch us the
Monongahela, and a fresh tumbler for Mr. Forrester--and, look you, one
too for Col. Blundell, seeing he's demolished the other. Quick, you
terrapin!"

Cuffee recovered himself in an instant. His hands fell to his sides--his
mouth closed intuitively; and the whites of his eyes changing their
fixed direction, marshalled his way with a fresh jug, containing two or
more quarts, to the rapacious lawyer.

"Ah, you blackguard, that will do--now, Mr. Forrester--now, Col.
Blundell--don't be slow--no backing out, boys--hey, for a long drink to
the stock in trade of our friend the pedler."

So spoke Pippin; a wild huzza attested the good humor which the
proposition excited. Potation rapidly followed potation, and the jug
again demanded replenishing. The company was well drilled in this
species of exercise; and each individual claiming caste in such circle,
must be well prepared, like the knight-challenger of old tourney, to
defy all comers. In the cases of Pippin and Blundell, successive
draughts, after the attainment of a certain degree of mental and animal
stolidity, seemed rather to fortify than to weaken their defences, and
to fit them more perfectly for a due prolongation of the warfare. The
appetite, too, like most appetites, growing from what it fed on,
ventured few idle expostulations; glass after glass, in rapid
succession, fully attested the claim of these two champions to the
renown which such exercises in that section of the world had won for
them respectively. The subject of conversation, which, in all this time,
accompanied their other indulgences, was, very naturally, that of the
pedler and his punishment. On this topic, however, a professional not
less than personal policy sealed the lips of our lawyer except on those
points which admitted of a general remark, without application or even
meaning. Though drunk, his policy was that of the courts; and the
practice of the sessions had served him well, in his own person, to give
the lie to the "_in vino veritas_" of the proverb.

Things were in this condition when the company found increase in the
person of the landlord, who now made his appearance; and, as we intend
that he shall be no unimportant auxiliary in the action of our story, it
may