The spigot, which up to this time had
run only "emptyings," was now giving out the clear juice of the
wine-vat. Each man bent his tin cup of an ear to catch it. The old man
noticed the movement and looked about him anxiously, as if dreading
another rebuff. He started to speak, cleared his throat, pulled
nervously at his beard for a moment, glancing furtively about the room,
and in a lower tone repeated the words:
"Asked if I had a drap o' whiskey. Well, I always take a dram when I
want it, and I had some prime stuff my son Ned had sent me over from
Frankfort, so I went hack and poured out 'bout four fingers in a glass,
and took it out to him.
"After he drunk it he handed me back the glass and driv off, sayin' he'd
be round later. I took the glass into the house agin and sot it
'longside the bottle on the mantel, and when I turned round there sot
the Gov'ment dep'ty. He'd come in, wife said, while I was talkin' with
Luke in the road. When he see the glass he asked if I had a license, and
I told him I didn't sell no liquor, and he asked me what that was, and I
told him it was whiskey, and then he got the bottle and took a smell of
it, and then he held up the glass and turned it upside down and out
drapped a ten-cent piece.
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