"Fit for a king, guv'nor," he pronounced it. "It's gingered up every nook and cranny of me."
"Powerful stuff, certainly," the tourist agreed. "I only touch it now and again, when feeling rather fagged. Your turn now, my friend."
Sam, more studious of the correct manner, sipped his cognac appreciatively.
"Better stuff than that never warmed the cockles of a man's heart, sir," he said. "I'm main obliged to you, for sure."
The tourist gazed into his flask with a measuring eye.
"I think I might safely spare another wee drappie," he said. "Feel like another drain, either of you?"
They both declared they did—Bill with emphasis, Sam with faint reluctance.
The tourist obliged them. Then, conveniently blind to the doglike pleading of Bill's enamoured eye, he screwed up the flask and returned it to his knapsack.
"Gives me a Good Samaritan-like feeling to see you both so refreshed," he said. "I must be getting farther on now, though I could stay till sunset in the enraptured contemplation of this ideal view. How sweetly the moon and stars will rise o'er yonder sea.
"'Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of Heaven
Blossomed the lovely stars,'"