“‘What do you think he did, Mr. Malcom?’ she added, turning to me, while her husband laughed heartily at what she said.  ’He begged me to let him make me a little wine egg-nog, seeing that I wouldn’t touch that which had brandy in it, because liquor always flies to my head.  To please him, I consented, though I didn’t want it.  And then, the rogue fixed me a glass as strong again with brandy as that which I had refused to take.  I thought while I was drinking it, that it did not taste like wine, and told him so.  But he declared that it was wine, and that it was so sweet that I could not clearly perceive its flavour.  Of course I had to go to bed, and didn’t get fairly over it for two or three days.  Now, wasn’t that too bad, Mr. Malcom!’

“‘Indeed it was, Mrs. Bradly,’ I said in reply.

“‘It was a capital joke, though, wasn’t it?’ rejoined her husband, laughing immoderately.

“‘I’ll tell you a good way to retort on him,’ I said, jestingly.

“‘How is that, Mr. Malcom?’

“Pull the tap out of his whiskey-barrel.’

“‘I would, if I dared.’

“‘She’d better not try that, I can tell her.’

“‘What would you do, if I did?’ she asked.

“‘Buy two more in its place, and make you drink one of them.’

“’O dear!  I must beg to be excused from that.  But, indeed, James, I wish you would let it run.  I’m really ashamed to have it said, that my husband keeps a barrel of whiskey in the house.’

“‘Nonsense, Sally! you don’t know what you are talking about.’

“‘Well, perhaps I don’t,’ the wife said, and remained silent, for there was a half-concealed rebuke in her husband’s tone of voice.

“I saw that I could say no more about the whiskey-barrel, and so I dropped the subject, and, in a short time, after having finished my business with Mr. Bradly, went away.

“‘Well, how comes on the whiskey-barrel?’ I said to him, about a month after, as we met on the road.

“‘First-rate,’ was his reply.  ’It contains a prime article of good old ‘rye,’ I can tell you.  The best I have ever tasted.  Come, won’t you go home with me and try some?’

“‘No, I believe not.’”

“‘Do now—­come along,’ and he took me by the button, and pulled me gently.  ’You don’t know how fine it is.  I am sure there is not another barrel like it in the town.’

“‘You must really excuse me, Bradly,’ I replied, for I found that he was in earnest, and what was more, had a watery look about the eyes, that argued badly for him, I thought.

“‘Well, if you won’t, you won’t,’ he said.  ’But you always were an unsocial kind of a fellow.’

“And so we parted.  Six months had not passed before it was rumoured through the neighbourhood, that Bradly had begun to neglect his business; and that he spent too much of his time at Harry Arnold’s.  I met his wife one day, about this time, and, really, her distressed look gave me the heart ache.  Something is wrong, certainly, I said to myself.  It was only a week after, that I met poor Bradly intoxicated.