“Sir, I have received no such letter. I certainly, sir, would, if it was thought that I was—”
“Was competent. Merit is always modest; you’re the most competent of the two, sir—take some.”
So saying, Mr. Patterson filled up the tumbler, and Dogberry swallowed the compliment and the wine together, and fixed his eye on the rafters with an exulting look. While he was so gazing, the lawyer filled his glass, and observed, “Come, drink, and let me open this other bottle; I want a glass myself.” Down went the wine, and, with a smack of his lips, Dogberry handed the glass to Mr. Patterson.
“Capital, ain’t it, eh?”
“Capital,” re-echoed Dogberry. The wine and his supposed honors had aroused the brain of the pedagogue in a manner which seemed to awake him to a new existence. While Mr. Patterson was striking the top from the other bottle, Dogberry handed me the candle which he held—the other he had put in his candlestick, taking out his own when he first drank—and lifting the tumbler, he stood ready.
Again he quaffed a bumper. The effect of his potations on him was electrical. He had a long face, with a snipe-like nose, which was subjected to a nervous twitching whenever its owner was excited. It now danced about, seemingly, all over his face, while his naturally cadaverous countenance, under the excitement, turned to a glowing red, and his small ferret eyes looked both dignified and dancing, merry and important. “So,” exclaimed he, “I am to be principal of the academy; ha, ha, ha! oh, Lord! William Russell, I would reprove you on the spot, but that you are in such distinguished company.”
Whether Dogberry meant only Mr. Patterson, or included himself, I do not know, but as he spoke he arose, and paced his humble apartment with a proud tread, forgetting what a figure he cut, with his suspenders dangling about his knees and his nightcap on, and forgetting also that his attic was not high enough to admit his head to be carried at its present altitude. The consequence was that he struck it against one of the rafters, with a violence that threatened injury to the rafter, if not to the head. He stooped down to rub the affected part, when Mr. Patterson said to him,
“ ‘Pro-di-gi-ous,’ as Dominie Sampson, one of you, said, ain’t it? Come, we’ll finish this bottle, and then go forth. The scholars are all rejoiced at your promotion, and are all assembled without to do you honor. They have made complete saturnalia of it. They marvel now why you treat them with so much reserve.”
“Gad, I’ll do it,” exclaimed Dogberry, taking the tumbler and swallowing the contents.
“Just put your blanket around you,” said Patterson to him. “Let your nightcap remain; it becomes you.”