Tongs, averaging three
draughts to one of his companion's, was soon fairly under way in his
progress to that state of mental self-glorification in which the world
ceases to have vicissitudes, and the animal realizes the abstractions of
an ancient philosophy, and denies all pain to life.
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.
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