Blyth, "I really meant too strong."
"Try again," suggested Zack, who was far advanced towards the bottom of
his own tumbler already. "Try again. Your liquor all went the wrong way
last time."
"More sugar," said Mat, neatly tossing two lumps into the glass from
where he sat. "More lemon (squeezing one or two drops of juice, and
three or four pips, into the mixture). More water (pouring in about a
tea-spoonful, with a clumsy flourish of the kettle). Try again."
"Thank you, thank you a thousand times. Really, do you know, it tastes
much nicer now," said Mr. Blyth, beginning cautiously with a spoonful
of the squaw's mixture at a time.
Mat's spirits seemed to rise immensely at this announcement. He lit his
pipe, and took up his glass of grog; nodded to Valentine and young
Thorpe, just as he had nodded to the northwest point of the compass a
minute or two before; muttered gruffly, "Here's all our good healths;"
and finished half his liquor at a draught.
"All our good healths!" repeated Mr. Blyth, gallantly attacking the
squaw's mixture this time without any intermediate assistance from the
spoon.
"All our good healths!" chimed in Zack, draining his glass to the
bottom. "Really, Mat, it's quite bewildering to see how your dormant
social qualities are waking up, now you're plunged into the vortex of
society.
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