“What do I want with water. For the future I’ll drink nothing but boiling brandy.”
“Smash me,” remarked Bond, the butcher, “if that ain’t a good idea.”
“Off with you,” roared Britton, to the amazed landlord. “Mind you bring it in with the bubbles on it. Let me see the hot steam rising from it—like—like reeking blood, and be d—d to you—take that.”
As these remarks were accompanied by a pint measure, which passed within an inch of his head, the landlord made a wild kind of rush from the room shouting,—
“Brandy boiling—brandy boiling directly, for his majesty King Britton.”
Britton felt himself wonderfully better and much appeased in spirit after his order of the boiling brandy, and he turned to the butcher with something of his usual manner, saying,—
“Bond, my boy, I shall never be the man I was till I have taken that fellow’s life.”
“You don’t say so?” remarked Bond.
“Yes, I do.”
“Oh, be bothered; you’ll be able to drink as much as ever, I know.”