The Scotch collops having been despatched with hearty good will, Uncle Timothy restricted our future libations to one single bowl. “And mind, Benjamin, only one!” This was delivered with peculiar emphasis. Mr. Bosky bowed obedience to the behest; and, as a nod is as good as a wink, he nodded to Mr. Jollyboy.
The bowl was brought in, brimming and beautiful; and it was five good acts of a comedy to watch the features of Uncle Timothy. He first gazed at the bowl, then at the landlord, then at the lauréat, then at us, and then at the bowl again!
“Pray, Mr. Jollyboy,” he inquired, “call you this a bowl, or a caldron?”
Mr. Jollyboy solemnly deposed as to its being a real bowl; the identical bowl in which six little Jollyboys had been christened.
“Is it your intention, Mr. Jollyboy, to christen us too? Let it be tipplers, then, mine host of the Tabard!”
“As to the christening, Uncle Timothy, that would be nothing very much out of order—seeing
That some great poet says, I'll take my oath,
Man is an infant, but of larger growth.
“Besides,” argued Mr. Bosky, Socratically, the dimensions of the bowl were not in the record; and as I thought we should be too many for a halfcrown sneaker of punch-”
“You thought you would be too many for me! And so you have been. Sit down, Mr. Jollyboy, and help us out of this dilemma. Take a drop of your own physic.”