"Faith, she mocked me for a tankard-tip and called me pottle-pot," he said, sadly. "God knows I drink little for my height, and so I told her, too!"
We were already at the "Virginia Arms," and I took him by the elbow and drew him firmly past the tap-room.
"Are we not to sniff a posset?" he demanded, in injured surprise. But he surrendered without a scene, for the late fighting had cleared his head of alcohol, and we mounted to my chamber, bidding a servant to fetch ink-horn, wax, sand, quill, and three sheets of good, clean paper.
When I had lighted my candle, and the materials for writing had been brought, I sat down on the bed and drew the table up before me.
"What are we to do while you write?" asked Mount, sulkily.
"Keep out o' mischief and the tap-room," said I, mending the quill with my hunting-knife.
They stood around rather blankly for a spell while I was composing the first letter, but presently I noticed they had squatted on the floor and were playing at jack-straws with pine splinters from the boards.
My three letters cost me great labour; writing and composition do ever rack me, mind and body, for I know that I spell not as others spell, nor write as I ought to write in the Boston style, and, moreover, those little dots which warn the wise reader that a phrase is ended mean little to me; so I pepper my sheet well with them and trust to God that they fall not on barren soil.
Thus armed with my quill, and doubly armed in the innocence of my ignorance, I made out to accomplish my three letters. The first was this:
"Sir William Johnson, Bart.