Nor was
the younger Brooks forgotten. Being a tall, good-looking lad of sixteen,
Tongs insisted it was high time he should appear among men; and the
invitation of the pedler was opportune, as affording a happy occasion
for his initiation into some of those practices, esteemed, by a liberal
courtesy, significant of manliness.
With everything in proper trim, Bunce stood at the entrance of his
lodge, ready to receive them. The preliminaries were soon despatched,
and we behold them accordingly, all four, comfortably seated around a
huge oaken table in the centre of the apartment. There was the jug, and
there the glasses--the sugar, the peppermint, the nutmegs--the pipes and
tobacco--all convenient, and sufficiently tempting for the unscrupulous.
The pedler did the honors with no little skill, and Tongs plunged
headlong into the debauch. The whiskey was never better, and found, for
this reason, anything but security where it stood. Glass after glass,
emptied only to be replenished, attested the industrious hospitality of
the host, not less than its own excellence.
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