After he had drained his glass, he said, "Come, boys, it's my treat now! What will you have?"
They again stepped up to the bar and each took his glass. "I will have some more brandy," he said, and he again took twice the quantity that is usually taken.
"Be careful, Barton, my boy," said Tims; "that brandy is 'the real old stingo,' and will set you up before you know where you are. I don't want you to think I care how much you take, but would not like you to do something for which you will be sorry afterwards."
"I guess his girl has gone back on him," remarked a young man by the name of William Stewart. "I hear that English snob, Ginsling, is now shining round there, and that pa' and ma' favor his suit."
Several of the others, with the same want of good taste as had been manifested by Stewart, joined him in giving expression to a number of coarse jokes and vulgar witticisms.
Barton stood as if stunned for a moment, and then, with a frown, said: "Gentlemen, you will oblige me by changing the subject."
As he requested, the subject was allowed to drop by those present, but not before they had stung poor Barton almost to madness.
"My God," he thought, "then it has come to this, that she for whom I would sacrifice my life, through the folly of her parents has become the object of the coarse, vulgar witticisms of bar-room loafers! The thought is almost unendurable."
William Barton was too sensitively organized to pass through his present fiery ordeal without terrible suffering. We have already said he was kindly and gentle, but under this he had an intensely passionate nature; which, combined with an extreme sensitiveness and a rather weak will, constituted him, of all persons, less calculated to endure the peculiar trial to which he was now subjected. He was, in fact, one who, under such circumstances, would display his weakness, and give a man with a cold, selfish, unfeeling nature, every advantage over him. The night in question he drank until Tims positively refused to give him any more.
"No, Barton," he kindly said, when the former had taken his fifth or sixth glass and asked for another; "no! you are not yourself tonight, and have taken more than is good for you. I am now using you as I would have another deal with my own son under similar circumstances."