He was a practical judge; and in five minutes’ time that accountant had pulled himself together.

And an even more painful case than the above is within my memory. A certain newspaper-proprietor was in the habit of paying the weekly wages of his staff himself, each member having to sign a receipt for the reward of merit. The fashion-editor—a hardened libertine—turned up one Saturday, before his chief, absolutely incapable of signing his name, or any part of it. His gait was all right, as was his speech; but the pen slipped through his fingers as though it had been a well-oiled icicle. The {201} chief called the next case, the while some of us poured over-proof rum down the throat of the fashion-editor at an adjacent hostelry. He sub­se­quent­ly trousered his salary, and signed the receipt, sat­is­fac­tor­i­ly, after pleading that he was suffering that morning from “shock.”

The chief looked somewhat incredulous.

“Is he an inebriate?” he asked, as soon as the invalid had left the office.

“Oh! dear no, sir,” replied the acrostic-editor, “he’s almost a teetotaller.”

And the incident was finished.

But what is really the best thing to be done under such sad circumstances? Should the invalid resort to the old remedy, and take at once that “hair of the dog” who bit him overnight? Not invariably. For instance, should British port, or brandy of the desiccated-window-sill (vide a former chapter) have been the causa teterrima of the trouble, nobody, however shaky, would revert to such remedies, the first thing after waking. And frequently it is difficult for the waker to remember which dog it was that assaulted him. I once visited a young friend in his chambers, at the hour of noon, and found him with a sad countenance, seated in an easy-chair faced by a perfect army of assorted bottles. I was about to administer a mild reproof, but he stopped me.

“It’s all right, dear old chappie, I’ve been taking a hair of the dog—you know. But I met such a lot of dogs, jolly dogs too, last night, that I’m hanged if I can remember which of ’em bit me!” {202}

The ancients cooled their coppers, for the most part, with ale, either small or large. And I am led to the belief that cider, or some preparation of apples, was also used as a pick-me-up, if “mel­an­choly vapours”—a complaint for which Gervase Markham specially rec­om­mend­ed cider as a specific—meant the same thing as alcoholic remorse. Search as I may I can find no recipe, no prescription, in old books for “hot coppers.” Can it be that the ancients, who as previously pointed out, were not teetotallers, deceived themselves in protesting before men that they had no sin?

Here is an old recipe headed: