Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/232

 as he drank. This done, he jerked himself towards me, saying: “’Tis a rare vintage, my Ryder, and I cannot conceive how my stomach abided those swipes.”

I clutched the bottles from him one by one, leaving him to his swilling, and examined them carefully, feigning to observe the marks; but soon an alarm took me, for what I was in search of was not there.

“Bah!” says I, “the knave has fobbed you off. This is not his best.”

The Ordinary stared. “’Tis well enough,” said he, “and there’s half a dozen more without.”

“Why, fetch ’em in,” cried I, with new hope, “maybe ’tis the tap I love.”

The Ordinary, stimulated thereby, obeyed without a word; and no sooner was the first bottle in my hands than I saw at once that Shackleton had taken my meaning, and I’ll warrant I laid it by with a mighty cheerful feeling in my heart. And with that I turned, smiling, to the Ordinary, and gave him a health, to which he responded with drunken gravity.