"Brandy," said I.

     He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious manner,--more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry, than a man who was eating it,--but he left off to take some of the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off.

     "I think you have got the ague," said I.

     "I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he.

     "It's bad about here," I told him. "You've been lying out on the meshes, and they're dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too."

     "I'll eat my breakfast afore they're the death of me," said he. "I'd do that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is over there, directly afterwards. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet you."