"Shore 'nough?" he burst out.
"Shore 'nough!" I answered, with a positive nod. "Give me some of your white lightning; I've grown used to fire."
He picked up the bottle haltingly, as though constrained to unbelief in spite of my words and my waiting hand, and placing his thumb over the cob stopper, began to shake the contents furiously.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"Shakin' th' fusic off!" he enlightened me, and it was a moment or two before I figured out what he meant. Fusil oil in whisky rises; Jeff's vigorous action was to diffuse it. His corruption of the word told me that he was totally ignorant of what he really was doing.
He drew the stopper with his teeth, and handed me the bottle. I think I have said elsewhere in this narrative that drinking whisky is not one of my weaknesses. That is to say, it is not a habit. I can scarcely conceive of a man living thirty years in Kentucky without drinking a little whisky. I knew the stuff I held was vile, but I put it to my lips for two reasons. I was dead tired, and I wanted to set this contrary creature's tongue to going on topics which would interest me. I took a big mouthful, swallowed, and thought my time had come. Hot? My throat closed up, tight, and for a time I could not breathe. My mouth burned as though it had been cauterized. I slid from the table, choked, coughing, my eyes running water. Back to the kitchen I tore for a draught from the bucket on the shelf—for something that would unstop my windpipe. Pelting my ears as I ran were the high-pitched, cackling notes of the Satyr, volley after volley, as he hugged his knees and rocked and weaved in unrestrained delight.
"Whut's the matter?" he queried, in mock surprise, as I reappeared with my handkerchief busy about my eyes and mouth.
"No more o' that junk, Jeffy!" I replied, thrusting my hand into the medicine chest on the wall and producing a quart of ten-year-old rye whisky. "If I make merry with you I'll choose my beverage."
"That's spring wadder!" he returned, contemptuously. "We feed that to babies out here."
"Spring water it may be, but it's stout enough for your uncle."