“I tell you, I—”
“Seventeen, eighteen,” said Masham, rising and reaching out his arm for the bottle.
There was no help for it. I seized my glass and gulped down its contents. It made me cough and sputter, and my eyes watered, greatly to the amusement of my persecutors.
“What is it?” they all cried.
I could scarcely speak for anger and the burning in my throat.
“It’s a shame!” I began.
“That’s not what it is,” cried Whipcord. “Come, give it a name, or you’ll have to drink another!”
“Oh, brandy,” I almost shrieked, willing to do anything rather than that. “I say, Hawkesbury,” I said, reproachfully, “I didn’t expect you were bringing me to this sort of thing.”
“It is a shame,” he said to me aside. “I would have stopped it if I could; but don’t you see they were eager about their bet, and it was the only way of quieting them. Never mind.”
The rest of the afternoon passed away much as it had begun. After dinner we went down to the river and took a boat, in which Masham and Whipcord lay and slept all the time, while Hawkesbury and I rowed them about. It was with difficulty, about five o’clock, that we got them ashore again, and half led, half dragged them back to the inn.