"Ho, it is Sharp!" muttered he, as he shoved the bottle and the glass into a recess, and laid again hold of the water-jug.
"Water, Thriven!" cried the attorney, as he bounded forward, and seized the bankrupt by the hand. "Water! and Mrs Grizel M'Whirter of Cockenzie dead, of a dead certainty, this forenoon; and you her nephew, and a will in her drawers, written by Jem Birtwhistle, in your favour, and her fortune ten thousand; and the never a mortal thought the old harridan had more than a five hundred."
"The devil a drop!" cried Mr Samuel Thriven. "The devil a drop of water; for, have I not in this press a half bottle of claret, which I laid past there that day of the fire, and never had the courage to touch it since. But me her heir! Ho, Mr Joseph Sharp, you are, of a verity, fooling a poor bankrupt, who has not a penny in the world after setting aside his composition of five shillings in the pound. Me her heir! Why, I was told by herself that I was cut off with a shilling; and you must say it seriously ere I believe a word on't."
"I say it as seriously," replied the writer, "as ever you answered a homethrust to-day in the sheriff's office, as to the amount of stock you lost by the burning of your premises—as sure as a decree of the Fifteen. I say your loss had made her repent; so come away with the claret."
Mr Thriven emptied the whole of the half bottle, at one throw, into a tumbler.
"Drink, thou pink of an attorney!" said he, and then fell back into his chair, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed on the roof, and his two hands closed in each other, as if they had been two notes for five thousand each.
"Are you mad, Mr Thriven?" cried Sharp, after he had bolted the whole tumbler of claret.
"Yes!" answered Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven.
"Have you any more of this Bordeaux water in the house?"
"Yes!" answered Mr Thriven. "Open that lockfast" (pointing to a press), "and drink till you are only able to shout 'M'Whirter'—'Cockenzie'—'Thriven'—'ten thousand'—'hurra!'—and never let a word more come out of you, till you fall dead drunk on the floor."