“It means that I want to drink with you the best claret you ever tasted.”
“Do you take me for a comedian? and have you called me here to play such a strange comedy?” I replied, with lips trembling with indignation.
“I did not invite you to play a comedy,” he answered. “I invited you to lecture on temperance to my people, and you have done it in a most admirable way these last three days. Though you did not see me, I was present at this evening’s address. I never heard anything so eloquent on that subject as what you said. But now that you have fulfilled your duty, I must do mine, which is to treat you as a gentleman and drink that bottle of wine with you.”
“But, my lord, allow me to tell you that I would not deserve to be called or treated as a gentleman were I vile enough to drink wine after the address I gave this evening.”
“I beg your pardon for differing from you,” answered the bishop.“ Those drunken people to whom you spoke so well against the evils of intemperance are in need of the stringent and bitter remedies you offer them in your teetotalism. But here we are sober men and gentlemen, we do not want such remedies. I never thought that the physicians were absolutely bound to take the pills they administer to their patients.”
“I hope your lordship will not deny me the right you claim for yourself, to differ with me in this matter. I entirely differ from you, when you say that men who drink as you do with your priests, have a right to be called sober men.”
“I fear, Mr. Chiniquy, that you forget where you are, and to whom you speak just now,” replied the bishop.
“It may be that I have made a blunder, and that I am guilty of some grave error in coming here and speaking to you as I am doing, my lord. In that case, I am ready to ask your pardon. But before I retract what I have said, please allow me to respectfully ask you a very simple question.”
Then taking from my pocket-book his printed address, and his public and solemn promise never to drink, neither to offer any intoxicating drinks to others, I read it aloud, and said:
“Are you the same Bishop of Detroit, called Lefebre, who has made this solemn promise? If you are not the same man, I will retract and beg your pardon, but if you are the same, I have nothing to retract.”