4.  At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist Like a dramseller on the public square, on a muster day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice.  “Here it is, gentlemen!  Here is the good liquor!  Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up!  Here is the superior stuff!  Here is the unadulterated ale of father Adam! better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price; here it is, by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay.  Walk up, gentlemen, walk up and help yourselves!”

5.  It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers.  Here they come.  A hot day, gentlemen.  Quaff and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice, cool sweat.  You, my friend, will need another cupful to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes.  I see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well curbs.  Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all—­in the fashion of a jellyfish.

6.  Drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night’s potations, which he drained from no cup of mine.  Welcome, most rubicund sir!  You and I have been strangers hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent.

7.  Mercy on you, man!  The water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite into steam in the miniature Tophet, which you mistake for a stomach.  Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any other kind of dramshop, spend the price of your children’s food for a swig half so delicious?  Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water.  Good-by; and whenever you are thirsty, recollect that I keep a constant supply at the old stand.

8.  Who next?  Oh, my little friend, you are just let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump.  Take it, pure as the current of your young life; take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now.

9.  There, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving stones that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them.  What! he limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine cellars.

10.  Well, well, sir, no harm done, I hope!  Go, draw the cork, tip the decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine.  If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump.  This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough.  See how lightly he capers away again!  Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout?