of a ragged, bloated, New England toper, stretched
out on a bench, in the heavy, apoplectic sleep of drunkenness. The death-in-life
was too well portrayed. You smelt the fumy liquor that had brought on this
syncope. Your only comfort lay in the forced reflection, that, real as he
looked, the poor caitiff was but imaginary, a bit of painted canvass, whom no
delirium tremens, nor so much as a retributive headache, awaited, on the morrow.
    By this time, it being past eleven o'clock, the two barkeepers of the saloon
were in pretty constant activity. One of these young men had a rare faculty in
the concoction of gincocktails. It was a spectacle to behold, how, with a
tumbler in each hand, he tossed the contents from one to the other. Never
conveying it awry, nor spilling the least drop, he compelled the frothy liquor,
as it seemed to me, to spout forth from one glass and descend into the other, in
a great parabolic curve, as well-defined and calculable as a planet's orbit. He
had a good forehead, with a particularly large development just above the
eyebrows; fine intellectual gifts, no doubt, which he had educated to this
profitable end; being famous for nothing but gin-cocktails, and commanding a
fair salary by his one accomplishment. These cocktails, and other artificial
combinations of liquor, (of which there were at least a score, though mostly, I
suspect, fantastic in their differences,) were much in favor with the younger
class of customers, who, at farthest, had only reached the second stage of
potatory life. The staunch, old soakers, on the other hand - men who, if put on
tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor, by way of blood - usually
confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; and,
oftentimes, they prefaced their dram with some medicinal remark as to the
wholesomeness and stomachic qualities of that particular drink. Two or three
appeared to have bottles of their own, behind the counter; and winking one red
eye to the barkeeper, he forthwith produced these choicest and peculiar
cordials, which it was a matter of great interest and favor, among their
acquaintances, to obtain a sip of.
    Agreeably to the Yankee habit, under whatever circumstances, the deportment
of all these good fellows, old or young, was decorous and thoroughly correct.
They grew only the more sober in their cups; there was no confused babble, nor
boisterous laughter.