Yet neither, according to the modern practice, did I wash the sugar, half melted, from the spoon into the tumbler, with a stream of hot water. That, I submit, is an approximation to the error of immersing the sugar in the unmixed brandy. No, no. Holding the spoon over the tumbler, I carefully dropped upon the sugar three drops of the boiling water. It was enough. The sugar gradually subsided into a pellucid liquid, which filled the spoon. Capsicum, who, sick as he was, still watched my proceedings with the deepest interest, and with a patronising air of mild benignity, repeated his testimonial—"Quite right."
Waiting till the sugar was wholly dissolved, I then at length infused sufficient hot water to scald the raw spirits, then added the sugar. Two or three stirs sufficed; not a bead floated on the surface. The mixture was made—tumbler about half an inch from full—a "stiff un." Capsicum raised himself from the table on which he had been leaning, with folded arms, like a cat watching a mouse, and gave a snort of approbation.
"You and that white fellow old acquaintance?" said Capsicum.
"Our acquaintance," replied I, "commenced at Falmouth about a week ago."
"Oh! thought perhaps he was some family connexion," said Capsicum.
"The connexion is quite recent, as I tell you," said I; "but I certainly don't mean to cut it. Hope to dine with him at headquarters, every day I'm disengaged."
"Dine with him at headquarters?" replied Capsicum. "You'll do nothing of the kind, I can tell you that, sir. That is, you'll dine with him at my table; pretty often, too, I trust. Hope I shall frequently have the pleasure of seeing you both. But at his own table, if you're twenty years at headquarters, you won't dine with him once; take my word for that. John Barrymore wouldn't suffer it." Here was a blow!
"Well, but that's a thing I can't understand," said I.
"Well then, I must make you understand it," replied Capsicum. "You are going out on an appointment as clerk in John Barrymore's Department. Isn't it so?" I bowed assent.
"Very well. That white chap does business in commissariat bills. When he gets a bill, he's dying to get the cash. Your Department pays the cash. Don't you see, my dear sir? It wouldn't do. It would be utterly at variance with all the rules of propriety, for any man in your Department to be on terms of intimacy with any man who does business in bills. Besides, it would be contrary to headquarters etiquette; everybody would talk about it. Now," added Capsicum, with a self-approving air, "now I've done my duty by John Barrymore. Noticed you were very thick. Thought I'd tell you, the first opportunity. Oh me! oh me!" (sighing, panting, gasping, pressing his hands on his stomach, and swaying his head from side to side,) "how very ill I do, feel! Such a horrid sensation! a don't-know-howishness—a sort of a come-overishness! The exertion of talking has made me quite bad again. Here, steward! steward! I must go on deck this instant." He turned ghastly green.