quenchers in the two hemispheres. It is not
necessary that I should enumerate them. The
names, at least, of egg noggs, juleps, brandy
smashes, timber doodles, and stone-fences,
are known in Europe; and there are already
several buffets in Paris where you can
be supplied with the cool and cunning
drink known—wherefore I am ignorant—
as a Fiscal Agent. The bar-keeper is a
scholar and a gentleman, as well as an
accomplished artist, captain of a fire
company, and, I believe, a man of considerable
property, and has unapproachable skill in
compounding and arranging these beverages,
and making them not only exquisite to the
taste but delightful to the view. His drinks
are pictures. See that tall tumbler, gracefully
proportioned, elegantly chased. See
through its pellucid walls the artfully-
chiselled blocks of purest ice, the frozen
powder at the top, the crisp icicles, spear,
arrow, halbert-headed, that cling about the
rim like bronze scrolls on a buhl cabinet.
See the blessed liquor within, ruddy, golden
or orange tawny, dancing in the sunlight,
sparkling in the glassy depths, purling
through fissures, rippling through the
interstices of the ice, and seeking the lowest
depths, the remotest caverns, where the
seaweed (represented by a sprig of mint) is, and
the mermaids dwell. See the summit,
crowned by a blushing green-crested
strawberry! Do you not feel inclined to sing with
the poet:

Hide, O hide those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are as those that April wears.

You feel inclined at least to hide the pink
strawberry by swallowing it, and to melt the hills
of snow by sucking them up through a delicate
straw together with the dancing golden
liquid, and all the by-delights that lie hidden
in that glorious drink. Then you may
retire into a corner, and, kicking up your
heels even unto an altitude of six feet
from the ground, rest them there on some
friendly ledge, and enjoy your mild
Havannah, or your keif, or your quid, or your
passion for castle-building. There are
degrees, my son, in human enjoyment. A cool
tankard and a long pipe in an arbour looking
upon a smooth bowling-green has, ere now,
been the dearest solace of scholars and
divines. Others can find no enjoyment more
gratifying than a bright fire, close-drawn
curtains, a silver teapot, and an uncut
number of the Quarterly. There are men
whom you could not tempt with gold or
jewels or tickets for the Lord Mayor's
banquet, to say there was a greater pleasure in
life than playing with their children. Sugar-
and-water and a toothpick will content some;
a cigar and cold toddy on the tiles others;
but, for my part, I do not know a pleasanter
animal enjoyment, of the tranquil, meditative
kind, than an American drink and a cigar,
and my keif afterwards. Yet even these
réjouissances are transitory : a melancholy
bubbling in the straw tells of the last drop
of the Fiscal Agent. Then comes the empty
glass, and payment, and remorse.

The bar-keeper and his assistants possess
the agility of acrobats and the prestidigitative
skill of magicians. They are all
bottle-conjurors. They toss the drinks about;
they throw brimful glasses over their heads;
they shake the saccharine, glacial, and
alcoholic ingredients in long tin tubes;
they scourge eggs and cream into froth ;
they send bumpers shooting from one end
of the bar to the other without spilling a
drop; they give change, talk politics, tell
quaint anecdotes, swear strange oaths, smoke,
chew, and expectorate with astonishing celerity
and dexterity. I should like to be a bar-
keeper, if I were clever enough.

It is in the Saint Boblink House that
you can comprehend, in its majestic
amplitude, the great American institution of
liquoring. Here, where the desopilated
loafer and the shrewd merchant, sallow
from Wall Street bargains; the over-dressed,
over-smoked, over-saturated-with-tobacco-
juice aristocrat from Fifth Avenue; the
cotton-sampling clerk; the dry-goods selling
dissenter, not being an advocate of Maine
its liquor-law, or a sitter at the feet of
John B. Gough; the Congress colonel; the
courteous steamboat captain; the scorched
southerner; the apathetic Dutchman, from
his Hudson farm; the turn-down collared
lecturer; the black-satin waistcoated editor;.
the raw-boned Kentuckian; the blue-eyed
German; the boastful Irishman, mingle and
drink, and drink again. The thing is gravely
done—sternly, almost solemnly. The drink
is a duty, as well as a mere relaxation and
refreshment. It is a part of the mission of
the sovereign people; and the list of
American drinks should be hung up in the
national museum, along with the national tar-
bucket, the national feather-bed, the national
revolver and bowie-knife, the national declaration
of independence, and the national and
almighty dollar.

I have no hesitation in saying that the
table-d'hôte at the Saint Boblink House is
the very best array of eatables in the whole
world. In cookery, the subtlety of the
sauces, and refinement of the flavouring, may
be surpassed by some few European
diplomatic chefs; but the quantity and quality of
the viands do, to adopt a native locution,
whip all creation. Roast and boiled, fried
and stewed, fish, soups, including the delicious
terrapin, and the famous Gumbo; oysters
(such oysters!) game, poultry, rice birds from
South Carolina infinitely preferable to
ortolans, pastry, sweets, jellies, blanc-manges and
ices. For an Apician feast, commend me
to the Saint Boblink. Sing, muse, too, of its
breakfasts, with their plethora of strange but