"He inquired his condition when I found him. I told him that he was at that time considerably drunk, and disposed to be somewhat noisy.
"'Well, squire,' said he, 'I shouldn't be surprised if it was so; the fact is, my head aches at this minute as if it was ready to bust,
and it feels jest as it did once in my lifetime, a good while ago, when I took too much egg nogg; that was full twenty-five year ago; for awhile, I felt as if I was ridin' to Heaven over glairy ice down a high hill, on a bob-sled with its runners greased. But I never got there; I know one thing sartain a few hours afterward I felt as if the bob-sled had run agin a stump, when almost tu the bottom of the hill, and the concussion had landed me intu a cauldron-kettle full of fever and ager and blacksmiths' hammers, mixed together in equal parts; it wasn't funny, squire; I went right off and jined the church, and hain't been blue since, unless I wos last night.'
"I asked Mr. Pettingill to give me a history of his experience in the city. He complied, and stated the facts as follows:
"'Well, you see, squire, I come to the city last evenin' from Albany, in the railroad, and when I got tu the shed where the railroad stops, I got out. A feller stepped up to me as important as a bantam cock after he has crowed for the first time, and asked me where I wanted to go. I told him I wanted tu go tu a first-rate tarvern. He said that idea was ridiculous; that they never allowed distinguished strangers tu go tu tarverns, and, unless he was mistaken, I was something above the common folks from the rooral deestricts. I told him I was supervisor of the town where I was born and brought up, in the St. Lawrence country. He said he was thunderin' glad to hear it, as he himself was something of a high cockalorum of New York. He insisted upon my gittin' intu the carriage and goin' tu his private dwellin', as it would be vulgar tu go tu tarverns. I asked him if the St. Nicholas Hotel was common. He said that nobody but those that wasn't no great shakes went there. We finally come to a real big, purty stun house, and the man jumped off from the carriage. He told me again that if he was rich he wasn't proud, and it was a way he had of always ridin' outside and drivin'. I told him I always done so, only in the consarn I had they all rode outside, for the reason that there warn't no inside. With that he larfed, and said that all folks didn't have jest the same way of doin' things, and we went tu the door. A nigger come and opened the door, and we went in. There was about twenty gentlemen, fixed off tu kill, and a table sot with bottles, and everything as slickery as could be. The man who brought me took me tu a fine-looking gentleman and told me that he was his brother, that he was obleeged tu go out on business connected with his office, but that he would be back by 11 o'clock; he said his brother would see tu me, and do the scrumptious while he was gone; well, we set down to the table; he was orful kind, for he helped me tu everything he could on the table all kinds of chicken-fixens and gingerbread arrangements; he then asked me tu take a glass of wine; I told him I was a little tew much of a temperance man for that; he said certainly he wouldn't ask me if I had any scrooples agin' it; he asked me if I was opposed to drinkin' cider; I said no, if it was sweet; he said that they had got in, about a week before, a barrel of sweet cider, which had jest enough snap in it tu make it taste good; he told the nigger to take a bottle of wine up stairs tu his sick nephew, and tu bring a pitcher full of cider up stairs from the new barrel; the nigger left with the bottle and the pitcher, and in about five minutes came back intu the room with the pitcher full of the slickest cider I ever seen; I drunk some of it, and it tasted so good that I drunk more; when I had taken almost enough, the gentleman asked me tu go into the back room where a lot of men was a setting around a table, holdin' little round pieces of bone in their hands and puttin' 'em down, and another man was fumblin' with some pieces of paper; I asked him if they wasn't playin' cards, 'cause I thought they looked as if they was; he said no, that they was Wall street stock-dealers, and that the pieces of bone stood for so many shares of stock; he asked if I wouldn't like to become a stock-jobber, and he said there was a power of money tu be made at the business; I said I guessed not, but he seemed tu be anxious tu do a little at it himself, and he asked me to lend him a hundred dollars which he would give back tu me when his brother came; after he had give me three or four more glasses of cider, which, by this time, he poured out of bottles, I handed him my money-puss and told him tu help himself; he opened it and took out all there was in it, which was ten dollars; he asked me if that was all I had got, and I told him that my calculations bad been jest right; that when I started from hum I had an idee that I should land with jest ten dollars in my puss; he then asked me if I had brought any checks or drafts, and I told him no; so he said he would borrow the ten, and he went into the stock business pretty heavy, and I watched to see how he made in the speculation, but after