Doctor Vardaman did not get through his little speech (which he delivered in a style quaintly reminiscent of the after-dinner orators of his youth, in an attitude with one hand beneath his coat-tails) without some uproarious interruptions; the momentary pause that followed had the surprising effect of clearing the brain of at least one in his audience. Whatever the others felt, J. B. suddenly realised, as he afterwards put it, that "he had reached his limit." He knew when _he'd_ had enough, and the trepidation visible in the doctor's face as Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine went on its devastating way, was repeated in his own. If the truth were known, the old gentleman had been congratulating himself on bringing off what he considered a tolerably clever _coup_ to end a sitting which promised disaster to some of the company; and doing it without offence. But alas! for the best-laid plans of mice and men! The catastrophe had occurred; some, perhaps most of the men were a little the worse for liquor; a few minutes of cool night air would cure them; but Teddy Johns, their prime performer, the peg upon which hung all their hopes of success, Teddy was hopelessly drunk. No night air, no applications of crushed ice and wet towels would cure _him_. Teddy was very good-natured; he sang, he winked, he joked, he told stories, he lavished endearments on his "frenge." Even in his worry, the doctor found time for the reflection that wine in, truth out is the most solid of maxims; liquor puts nothing into a man's nature that was not there already, it can but reveal him naked; and if he will be a brute in his cups, it is odds but you shall find him a brute at heart out of them. There was nothing brutal about poor Teddy; you could no more be angry with him than with a child. Too late the doctor regretted his hospitality, too late he lamented the love of good cheer and youthful company that had prompted him to this inordinate abundance. He was in the frame of mind to write a temperance tract; and a sarcastic grin fled across his features as he pictured what that celebrity of his earlier years, Mr. T. S. Arthur, would have made of the scene--the moral he would have drawn therefrom. Once I myself had the privilege of tasting the wine of Mynheer Van der Cuyp. It was a dark and heavy liquor, pouring like oil, rich of aroma, searching the veins with subdued fire. Perhaps few of Doctor Vardaman's guests could appreciate that marvellous flavour; at any rate Teddy was the only one to express a clamorous approval: "Pretty goo' for ol' Chickencoop! Give us s'more, Huddesley!"