"As I have now told you twice, I know not. But I cannot stay parleying here with you all night. A friend will wait upon you to-morrow. Frank Garrett must wipe out that blow. I trust my friend's visit will be agreeable. Sir, I wish you a good night," and he took off his richly gold laced hat with great ceremony and, bowing solemnly, withdrew. My cousin gazed with drunken gravity after him and hiccoughed more than once, and muttered, "A nice ending truly to a supper party. The girls gone, insulted by landlord and--and the reckoning to pay and fight to-morrow--Garrett knows every passado to be learnt at the fence school. I must see to it. And there is no more to drink." Here he reeled over to the tavern again from the middle of the road, and, beating on the door, called out to, them to come down and give him another draught and he would forget their treatment of him while the reckoning should be paid in the morning. But his noise produced no other reply than the opening of a window upstairs, from which a man thrust forth his head covered with a nightcap and bade him begone or the watch should be summoned. While for the reckoning, the man said, his honour might be sure that that would have to be paid since he knew his honour's father well. After which the window was closed.
But now, when once more all was still, Oliver and I stepped forth, and the former taking off his hat with great civility and bowing, said, "Sir, we have been witnesses of how ill you have been treated, both by your friend and the tavern-keeper. And 'tis a sin to thrust forth so gallant a gentle man when he wishes another cup."
"I do, plaguily," muttered Roderick.
"Therefore, young sir, if you require another draught I can show you where it may be obtained."
"Can you? Then you are a right good fellow, though who and what you are I know not from Adam. Some city put, I suppose, who wishes to be seen in company with a gentleman!"--'twas ever my cousin's habit to make such amiable speeches as these, and thereby to encounter the ill will of those whom he addressed. "But, however, I care not whom I am seen in company with. I'll go along with you." Then, suddenly, his eye lighted on me, whereon he exclaimed, "What, my gentleman! Why, 'twas you who were in Macarthy's earlier in the evening. I suppose you left ere I awoke from my doze. Are you, too, stranded for a draught and obliged to be indebted to this good--humph!--person for procuring you one?"
"Even so," I answered, thinking it best to fall in with his supposition, whereon Oliver said:
"Come on then, young sirs, or all the taverns will be closed. Yet, stay, will you have a sup ere we set forth. I have the wherewithal in my pocket," and he thrust his hand in his coat and pulled out a great flask he had provided to keep out the morning air from our lungs when we should be on the river.
"First come, first served," he said, winking at me, which action being under an oil lamp I could well perceive, and he handed me the flask which I put to my mouth and pretended to drink from, though not a drop did I let pass my lips. "And you, sir," he went on, turning to my cousin, "will you try a draught? 'Tis of the right kind--and--hush! a word--the gauger has never taken duty on it."
"So much the better. Hand over," said Roderick, "the night air is raw. Ah!" He placed the bottle to his lips as he uttered this grunt of satisfaction and took a long deep draught, and then returned the flask enviously to Oliver and bade him lead to the tavern he knew of, where he promised he would treat us both to a bowl of punch ere the night was done.
But Oliver (as he told me afterwards) not thinking it advisable to be seen in more public houses than necessary--considering the business we were on--purposely led the way to one near the river of which he knew, by as circuitous a route as possible, so that, ere we had gone half a mile, Roderick called a halt for another refresher. All the way we had come he had been maundering about the treatment he had received at the tavern, about the desertion of him by the actresses, and about his friend's treachery, mixed up with boastings of his father's standing, his speech being very thick and his gait unsteady. So that the same hope was in Oliver's mind as in mine, namely that another attack upon the bottle might do his business for him. Yet, when he had taken it, he was not quite finished--though nearly so, since he would once or twice have fallen had we not held him up between us as we went along,--and we were fain at last to suggest a third pull at the flask. And shortly after he had taken that he could go no farther but, after hiccoughing out some unintelligible words, sank helpless on the stones.