RECOLLECTIONS TO 1890. 69 



tion we gave them equalled to Mr. Coming's ; but I 

 am sure we did the best we could in our sphere of 

 action, and I recollect well that at one time we had a 

 certain wine named Barsac, that loosened the tongues- 

 amazingly, in spite of you. 



I forget that some years before that Barsao episode, 

 we, my friend, Mr. A. K. Smith and I, had bought a 

 cask of white wine, German or French, I forget, that 

 was so exhilarating when you had drunk a small glass 

 full, you felt like flying ! Any how, it made one talk 

 more than he ought to, telling you what he had done> 

 and what he would in the future. The color of that 

 wine was so seducing, so bewitching, so sympathetic, 

 that when you had enough you wanted more ! like 

 " Oliver Twist ! ! " only the former had too much and 

 the latter not enough. 



That wine was so tempting I cannot find Eng- 

 lish expression to describe its influence on one's system, 

 all I can recollect to-day is that Mr. Smith and I decided 

 in our wisdom it was the best preparation you could 

 administer to a man on whom you wished to make 

 some psychological observation. Finely we baptized it 

 " Rayons du Soleil ! ! Rays of the Sun ! ! We never had 

 since so good. The next we had after was so inferior that 

 we called it the "Rays of the Moon," and it hardly de- 

 served that name. Since I am born I have never seen 



