“Any friend of Sour-dough Floud’s is all right with me,” he assured me. “What’s the matter with having a drink?” “Say, listen here! I wouldn’t have to be blinded and backed into it,” said Cousin Egbert, enigmatically, I thought, but as they sat down I, too, seated myself. Something within me had sounded a warning. As well as I know it now I knew then in my inmost soul that I should summon Mrs. Effie before matters went farther. “Beer is all I know how to say,” suggested Cousin Egbert. “Leave that to me,” said his new friend masterfully. “Where’s the boy? Here, boy! Veesky-soda! That’s French for high-ball,” he explained. “I’ve had to pick up a lot of their lingo.” Cousin Egbert looked at him admiringly. “Good old Jeff!” he said simply. He glanced aside to me for a second with downright hostility, then turned back to his friend. “Something tells me, Jeff, that this is going to be the first happy day I’ve had since I crossed the state line. I’ve been pestered to death, Jeff--what with Mrs. Effie after me to improve myself so’s I can be a social credit to her back in Red Gap, and learn to wear clothes and go without my breakfast and attend art galleries. If you’d stand by me I’d throw her down good and hard right now, but you know what she is----” “I sure do,” put in Mr. Tuttle so fervently that I knew he spoke the truth. “That woman can bite through nails. But here’s your drink, Sour-dough. Maybe it will cheer you up.” Extraordinary! I mean to say, biting through nails. “Three rousing cheers!” exclaimed Cousin Egbert with more animation than I had ever known him display. “Here’s looking at you, Colonel,” said his friend to me, whereupon I partook of the drink, not wishing to offend him. Decidedly he was not vogue. His hat was remarkable, being of a black felt with high crown and a wide and flopping brim. Across his waistcoat was a watch-chain of heavy links, with a weighty charm consisting of a sculptured gold horse in full gallop. That sort of thing would never do with us. “Here, George,” he immediately called to the waiter, for they had quickly drained their glasses, “tell the bartender three more. By gosh! but that’s good, after the way I’ve been held down.” “Me, too,” said Cousin Egbert. “I didn’t know how to say it in French.” “The Reverend held me down,” continued the Tuttle person. “‘A glass of native wine,’ he says, ‘may perhaps be taken now and then without harm.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘leave us have ales, wines, liquors, and cigars,’ I says, but not him. I’d get a thimbleful of elderberry wine or something about every second Friday, except when I’d duck out the side door of a church and find some caffy. Here, George, foomer, foomer--bring us some seegars, and then stay on that spot--I may want you.” “Well, well!” said Cousin Egbert again, as if the meeting were still incredible. “You old stinging-lizard!” responded the other affectionately. The cigars were brought and I felt constrained to light one.