Mr. Howe’s faded blue eyes moisten and a kindly smile plays over a countenance browned by many summers in the hay field.
“Didn’t buy that in Vermont,” he ventures.
“Hardly. I’m not lined with asbestos.”
The landlord grins. It is a habit he has.
“I keeps a little suthin’ on hand myself,” he confides in a cautious undertone, although only the cattle are listening. “But fact is, there ain’t no use er keepin’ better’n dollar’n a half a gallon liquor. The boys want suthin’ that’ll scratch when it goes down. Now that, I opine,” with an affectionate glance at the flask which Ashley files away for future reference, “must a cost nigh onter $3 a gallon.”
“As much as that,” smiles Ashley. “That, most appreciative of bonifaces, is the best whisky to be found on Fulton street, New York. Well, I must be ‘driving along.’ Where’s this wonderful brook of yours?”
“Follow that road round through the barnyard and ‘cross the basin to the woods. Good fishin’ for four miles. And mind,” as Ashley saunters away, “don’t bring back any trouts that ain’t six inches long, or the fish warden will light on ye.”
“Thanks. If I should run across the warden—” and Ashley holds up the flask.
“That’d fetch him, I reckon,” chuckles Mr. Howe. Ashley vaults over the bars and strides across the meadows.
Ashley is in high feather. “This air rather discounts an absinthe frappe for stimulative purposes,” he soliloquizes. “Ah, here’s the wood, there’s the brook, and if I mistake not, yonder pool hides a whopper just aching for a go at the early worm.” But it doesn’t and Ashley enters the forest.