Her master had called her back to forbid her buying wine while there was so much in the house; but she was gone beyond the reach of his feeble voice, and the other persons who were in the room were for the wine being bought. Dr. Say, an apothecary who passed very well for a physician in this neighbourhood, declared that home-made raisin wine was by no means likely to agree with the patient, or support his strength; and Peek, the son-in-law, reminded the old gentleman that the cost of the wine would come out of his estate, as it was little likely that he would live to pay the bill. “You yourself said,” uttered the old man in the intervals of his pantings, “you said, only last week, that few drink foreign wine that spend less than their six hundred a-year. I don’t spend six hundred a-year; and Jane’s raisin wine might serve my turn.” “That was in talking about the taxes,—the tax that doubles the cost of wine. I don’t see why people of three hundred a-year should not drink as much as those that spend six, if the cost of wine was but half what it is; especially if they be sick and dying.—And a fine thing it would be for the wine trade, seeing that there are many more people who spend three hundred a-year than six. So both the makers and the drinkers have reason to be vexed that for every gallon of wine that ought to cost five shillings, they have to pay ten.” “Now, Mr. Peek, do not make my father discontented with his wine before he tastes it,” said Jane, observing the shade that came over the old man’s face at the mention of the price. “O, that need not be. He must have had wine for to-night, you know, if he had been well, and brandy into the bargain, if Jerry Hill and his brother had been alive.—But, sir, if you find fault with the wine-duty, what would you have? There is no help for it but an income tax, and you don’t like that, you tell me.—Dear me, Dr. Say, look how white he turns, and how his teeth chatter. He is failing very fast, poor soul!” “Confound the income tax! The very talk of it has been the death of me,” Mr. Farrer had still strength to say. “Mr. Peek, I wish you would leave off talking about such things,” said Jane. “Do not you see that my father cannot bear it?” “Why, dear me, Jane, don’t you know that there is nothing he is so fond of talking about as that that he and I know most about? Why, he is never tired of asking me about what I meet with in the way of my business!” “Well! tell him stories to amuse him, if you like; but don’t threaten him with the income tax any more.” “With all my heart. He shall carry none but pleasant ideas to his grave for me.—I say, sir, I should think you must sell a good many more candles since the duty came off, don’t you?—Ah! I find the difference in some of the poorer houses I go into. A halfpenny a pound on tallow candles was a tax——”