"I am but a poor captain, and wine is very dear. I never tried seriously. I can't afford to exceed my seven quarts a day; but if your majesty would stand treat I would undertake to finish twelve at least. But my squire who is called Balthasar the Bottomless, is a much harder drinker than I am." Balthasar was called, a thin, ashy-pale little fellow with lank straight hair, and the king sent them into a tent by themselves, with some fine old casks of Hochheimer and Nierstein, and told them to get drunk. They began at 11 a.m., and by 4 p.m. they had finished eight gallons of Hochheimer and twelve of Nierstein. When the king went to see them they were quite sober, but Captain Tosspot said he thought he should soon have to loosen his sword-belt, and Balthasar had undone three buttons of his collar. Then said the king, "What better ambassadors can I find to talk the fair city of Bremen into its senses?" So Tosspot was made ambassador and Balthasar the Bottomless his secretary, and they were properly rigged out, and their instructions were made out; and the first of these was that they were to drink nothing but water on the way to Bremen, that the battle in the cellar might be more glorious afterwards; another was that Tosspot was to rub his nose with a white ointment, that no one might see what a practised mouth he was. They arrived safely at Bremen, but both of them naturally quite ill through drinking water: the Senators of Bremen thought they would have an easy victory over two such milksops, and so the burgomaster said he would look after the ambassador, and Dr. Redpepper should settle the secretary. So in the evening they were solemnly led into the cellar with a lot of senators who were invited to assist in the negotiations. They sat down in this room and had a little spiced meat and ham and red herrings; but when Mr. Ambassador Tosspot wanted to begin the negotiation in an honourable manner, and Mr. Secretary Balthasar took parchment and ink-horn from his pocket, "Not so, noble gentlemen," said the burgomaster; "it is not the custom in Bremen that we should settle weighty matters with a dry throat, we will first drink to one another, as our ancestors in like cases have always done." "I am but a poor drinker," said the captain, "but if it so pleases your High-Mightiness I will take a drop." So they began to drink and treat at the same time; and to encourage their guests, the senators and the doctor and the burgomaster went a little further than usual with the Rüdesheimer. At each new bottle the strangers excused themselves, assuring the burgomaster that it was beginning to get into their heads; which of course delighted him immensely: and at last said the burgomaster, "now for bishnesh." But as the "bishnesh" went on, the burgomaster went to sleep while he was defining the word neutrality, and Doctor Redpepper lay already under the table: then the other senators came and went on with the negotiations and the drinking; but