194 TOM draw's visit to pine brook. 



airthe is we to drink out of these — not water, that I 

 know! leastways, I uiver see none in this house, no how." 



"The green one is for brandy, Tom!" McTavish an- 

 swered. 



"Ey, ey!" Tom interrupted him, "and they makes them 

 green, I guess, so as no one shall see how much a body 

 takes — now that's what I does call geiiteel !" 



"And this large pFain one," added Mac, looking as 

 grave as a judge, and lifting one of the huge champagne 

 glasses — "is a dram glass for drinking Scotch whiskey — 

 what they call in the Highlands a thimblefuU — " 



"They take it as a medicine there, you see Tom," con- 

 tinued Archer; "a preventive to a disease well known in 

 those parts, called the Scotch fiddle — did you ever hear 

 of it?" 



"Carnt say," responded Tom; "what like is't?" 



"Oh, Mac will tell you, he suffers from it sadly — didn't 

 you see him tuck in the specific — it was in compliment to 

 him I had the thimbles set out to-day." 



"Oh! that's it, ay?" the fat man answered. "Well, I 

 don't care if I do" — in answer to Harry's inquiry whether 

 he would take some boiled shad, which, with caper sauce, 

 had replaced the soup — "I don't care if I do — shads isn't 

 got to Newburgh yet, leastways, I harnt seen none — " 



Well might he say that, by the way, for they had scarce 

 appeared in New York, and were attainable now only at 

 the moderate rate of something near their weight in silver. 

 After the fish, a dram of Ferintosh was circulated in one 

 small glass, exquisitely carved into the semblance of a 

 thistle, which Draw disposed of with no comment save a 

 passing wonder that when men could get applejack, they 

 should be willing to take up with such smoky trash as 

 that. 



A saddle of roast mutton, which had been hanging, 

 Harry said, six weeks, a present from that excellent good 

 fellow, the Captain of the Swallow, followed, and with it 

 came the splitcorks — "By heavens," I cried, almost in- 

 voluntarily — "what a superb champagne" — suffering, after 

 the interjection, something exceeding half a pint of that 

 delicious, dry, high-flavored, and rich-bodied nectar, to 

 glide down my gullet. 



"Yes" — answered Harry — "yes — alack! that it should 

 be the last ! This is the last but one of the first importa- 



