Major Bergan set down his glass, and looked at his nephew sternly and gloomily. "Don't tell me that you are a mean-spirited teetotaller," he growled. "I can't say how I might take it. There never was a milksop in the family yet."
"No, I am hardly that. But I am not accustomed to use spirituous liquors of any sort. And I certainly do not need them. I am in perfect health; I hardly know what it is to feel tired."
"I wish I didn't!" muttered his uncle, a little less savagely. "I'm pretty hearty, for my years, to be sure. But an ache gets into my bones now and then, just to remind me that I am not so young as I was once. And the best thing to rout it is a good glass of brandy. Better take one?"
"Not if you will be so good as to excuse me," replied Bergan, with a smile so frank, and a gesture so courteous, that the Major was irresistibly mollified.
"A guest's wish is a command," said he, with one of his rare glimmers of courtesy. "But here comes the wine! I really cannot excuse you from that,—at least, I should be very loath to do so. I'll even join you in a glass. Here's to your mother's health and happiness!—you won't refuse to drink that, not on the place where she was raised."
If Bergan was annoyed by his uncle's persistency, he forebore to show it. But, having duly honored the toast, he pushed his glass aside, and declined every invitation to have it refilled.
"Well, well," said his uncle, at last, in a tone of resignation, "we won't quarrel about it now. But I see that your education is incomplete, and I shall take it upon myself to finish it. If I don't teach you to drink like a gentleman, in a month, I shall know that you are no true Bergan, in spite of your looks."
Bergan only smiled.
"Your temperance is the one thing I don't like about you," pursued his uncle, filling his own glass to the brim. "Ah, yes, there's one more;—your mother writes that you have studied law, and mean to practise it."
"Yes; I received my license just two months ago."