“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said, “this is a beverage of ante-bellum days, a sort of compound potpouri or strong sangaree of the olden time—you wouldn’t like it. But I will send Sandy out for anything you say?”
I insisted upon taking what he was having. He hesitated for a moment as though I had put him in a predicament, and then he called out:
“Sandy! Bring the gentleman a glass of our sangaree.”
During this brief colloquy Dunlevy kept shading his eyes from me as if he did not care to have me see his face; and after giving the order for the liquor, he drew his chair up close to the fire-place so that his back was towards me. Even while he had been speaking these few words to me, his face and figure attracted my notice. His expression was a blending of artlessness and of shrewdness. He seemed to be one of those men who try to keep you from believing that they have a heart, when their gracious bearing and gentle mien give their tongue the lie.
So long as you do not try to make an intimate friend of him, I said to myself, all will go well.
But after he had once invited me to share his rare beverage I could perceive that there was an intangible metamorphosis going on within him. It reminded me of Mr. Mansfield playing the character of Dr. Jekyll just before becoming Mr. Hyde, only with Dunlevy the character change was exactly the reverse: the genial GOOD in him seemed to thaw out. His eyes, usually drunk with thought, were now radiant and watery with feeling. His sensitiveness appeared to tingle in every pore. Perhaps he anticipated the effect that his liquor was to produce upon me.
The negro brought me a glass filled with a thick posset. I drank a quarter of the tumblerful before I could take it from my lips.
“My soul! What is this?” I asked, still tasting the grated nutmeg and the old-fashioned flavor of wild-cherry bounce. It seemed also to leave that delicate bouquet of real Medford rum.
“You speak as though it were ambrosia,” said Dunlevy over his shoulder from his chair before the fire, “but as a matter of fact, it is only sangaree. You see, the reason I was surprised to see you was that I every now and then have a spell of sickness—feel queer about the head—that is all, and I don’t like to see anyone, you know; but as the janitor let you in, I am certainly glad to see you and I reckon you won’t mind me h’eh in this costume.” Here his southern accent broke out.
“But this sangaree!” I exclaimed, finishing the liquor, “how in Heaven’s name is it made?”