The process was as simple as it was ingenious; it was the egg of Christopher Columbus. The astonishment his neighbors felt permitted the inventor to profit by his discovery, which is unfortunately a rarity. This improvised cup was unanimously accepted, but the imitators saw their piracy suffer the same fate, minus the breakage, as the glasses. Quite tired, I was about to withdraw, when a new improvement was introduced by a spectator, as thirsty as he was obstinate; throwing back his head and opening an enormous mouth, he made me signs to pour in curaçoa. Finding the idea original, I immediately complied. “What capital curaçoa,” the man said, as he licked his lips. This seductive exclamation was scarce heard ere every mouth was open and heads thrown back; it was enough to make me fly in terror. Still, not to leave so curious a scene incomplete, I took a watering tour, holding the mouth of the bottle as straight as I could. At times, the bottle being pushed by the neighbors, sent the liquor over a man’s coat, but, save this slight inconvenience, all went on famously, and I fancied I had fulfilled the rude task of quenching the thirst of my audience. Still, I heard a few more appeals; and a glass of whisky was earnestly implored by one of the men who had thrust his head between the plank and the boxes, and seemed in a perfect state of collapse. My son, who helped me on the stage, and was one of the first to hear this request, understood all the longing the poor suppliant felt; hence he ran on the stage for a glass, which I filled, and he carried to the man. But a difficulty suddenly arose; the claimant and his comrades were shut up in their pillory, side by side, and could not raise their arms. My son, unthinkingly, offered the glass, and seeing no one take it, was about to carry it back on the stage; but a groan made him turn round, and, by the patient’s air, he understood he was begging him to stoop down and place the glass to his lips. This delicate operation was performed with considerable skill on both sides, and, despite the laughter of the public, each of the pilloried men asked the same service in turn. This little scene appeared to have calmed the ardor of the public; and I thought it possible to terminate my trick in the usual way. When my bottle appears exhausted, I end by filling an enormous glass with liquor, but a scene then began which I had been far from expecting. Many writers have described the saturnalia produced by the frightful distribution of food and wine at the Restoration. Well, these orgies were respectable meals compared with the assault attempted to reach the glass I held in my hand. A human avalanche suddenly rose before me, and from this living pyramid emerged two hundred hands to dispute their prey, while a hundred mouths were opened to swallow it.