Reaching across the table, Tug cordially shook hands with his friend, who had been doing nothing up to that time save enjoying Tug's humor, and indorsing whatever he said. Whether Silas enjoyed being called a scoundrel, a villain, a loafer, and a liar, is not known, but he certainly heard these expressions very frequently; for Tug seemed to tolerate him only because of his total and thorough depravity, though the other acquaintances of Silas regarded him as a mild-mannered little man without either vices or virtues. "I have but two friends," Tug said again, seating himself, and gazing stiffly at his host, "Rum and Davy; rum cheers me when I'm sad, and Davy feeds me when I'm hungry, though the splendid thief does not feed me as well as he might were he more industrious. Rum has a bad reputation, but I announce here that it is one of my friends. I am either ravenously hungry, or uncomfortable from having eaten too much, all the time, so that I do not get much comfort from victuals; but rum hits me just right, and I love it. You say it will make me drunk. Very well; I _want_ to get drunk. If you argue that it will make me reckless, I will hotly reply that I _want_ to be reckless, and that a few bottles will make me as famous as a lifetime of work and success will make a sober man. Therefore I hail rum as my best friend, next to the unscrupulous rascal known for hailing purposes, when there are boots to be polished, or errands to run, as Hup-avy." The eminent legal mind hurriedly put his hand to his mouth, as though thoroughly humiliated that he had hiccoughed, and, looking at Dorris with the air of a man who commits an unpardonable indiscretion and hopes that it has not been noticed, continued with more care, with a great many periods to enable him to guard against future weakness. "Although I have but two friends, I have a host of enemies. Among them Tigley. My wife's cousin. When I was a reputable lawyer, Tigley appeared in Davy's Bend. Tigley was a fiddler. And spent his time in playing in the beer halls for the drinks. The late Mrs. Whittle believed him to be a great man. She called him a mastero, though he played entirely by ear; and excused his dissipation on the ground that it was an eccentricity common to genius. If Tigley ever comes in my way again there will be something to pay more disagreeable than gold. He taught me to like rum." Silas, who acted as a kind of chorus, intimated to Dorris that his friend referred to a word of four letters beginning with an "h," and ending with an "l." "That's _one_ reason why I am a drunkard," the victim of too many relatives added, after a moment's thought. "The other is that I could never talk up to the old women except when I was drunk, and it was necessary to talk up to her so often that I finally craved spirits."