Brooks, however, though not averse to the overcoming element, had more of that vulgar quality of prudence than his brother-in-law, and far more than was thought amiable in the opinion of the pedler. For some time, therefore, he drank with measured scrupulousness; and it was with no small degree of anxiety that Bunce plied him with the bottle—complaining of his unsociableness, and watching, with the intensity of any other experimentalist, the progress of his scheme upon him. As for the lad—the younger Brooks—it was soon evident that, once permitted, and even encouraged to drink, as he had been, by his superiors, he would not, after a little while, give much if any inconvenience to the conspirators. The design of the pedler was considerably advanced by Tongs, who, once intoxicated himself, was not slow in the endeavor to bring all around him under the same influence.
"Drink, Brooks—drink, old fellow," he exclaimed; "as you are a true man, drink, and don't fight shy of the critter! Whiskey, my boy—old Monongahely like this, I say—whiskey is wife and children—house and horse—lands and niggers—liberty and [hiccup] plenty to live on! Don't you see how I drive ahead, and don't care for the hind wheels? It's all owing to whiskey! Grog, I say—Hark ye, Mr. Pedler—grog, I say, is the wheels of life: it carries a man for'ad. Why don't men go for'ad in the world? What's the reason now? I'll tell you. They're afeared. Well, now, who's afeared when he's got a broadside of whiskey in him? Nobody—nobody's afeared but you—you, Ben Brooks, you're a d——d crick—crick—you're always afeared of something, or nothing; for, after all, whenever you're afeared of something, it turns out to be nothing! All 'cause you don't drink like a man. That's his cha-cha-rack-ter, Mr. Bunce; and it's all owing 'cause he won't drink!"
"Guess there's no sparing of reason in that bit of argument, now, I tell you, Mr. Tongs. Bless my heart—it's no use talking, no how, but I'd a been clean done up, dead as a door-nail, if it hadn't been for drink. Strong drink makes strong. Many's the time, and the freezing cold, and the hard travelling in bad roads, and other dreadful fixins I've seed, would soon ha' settled me up, if it hadn't been for that same good stuff there, that Master Brooks does look as if he was afeared on. Now, don't be afeared, Master Brooks. There's no teeth in whiskey, and it never bites nobody."
"No," said Brooks, with the utmost simplicity; "only when they take too much."
"How?" said the pedler, looking as if the sentence contained some mysterious meaning. Brooks might have explained, but for Tongs, who dashed in after this fashion:—
"And who takes too much? You don't mean to say I takes too much, Ben Brooks. I'd like to hear the two-legged critter, now, who'd say I takes more of the stuff than does me good. I drinks in reason, for the benefit of my health; and jest, you see, as a sort of medicine, Mr. Bunce; and, Brooks, you knows I never takes a drop more than is needful."
"Sometimes—sometimes, Tongs, you know you ain't altogether right under it—now and then you take a leetle too much for your good," was the mild response of Brooks, to the almost fierce speech of his less scrupulous brother-in-law. The latter, thus encountered, changed his ground with singular rapidity.
"Well, by dogs!—and what of that?—and who is it says I shan't, if it's my notion? I'd like now to see the boy that'll stand up agin me and make such a speech. Who says I shan't take what I likes—and that I takes more than is good for me? Does you say so, Mr. Bunce?"
"No, thank ye, no. How should I say what ain't true? You don't take half enough, now, it's my idee, neither on you. It's all talk and no cider, and that I call monstrous dry work. Come, pass round the bottle. Here's to you, Master Tongs—Master Brooks, I drink your very good health. But fill up, fill up—you ain't got nothing in your tumbler."
"No, he's a sneak—you're a sneak, Brooks, if you don't fill up to the hub. Go the whole hog, boy, and don't twist your mouth as if the stuff was physic. It's what I call nation good, now; no mistake in it, I tell you."