The pedler winced under the equivocal compliments of his companion, but did not suffer anything of this description to interfere with the vigorous prosecution of his design.  He had the satisfaction to perceive that Brooks had gradually accommodated himself not a little to the element in which his brother-in-law, Tongs, was already floating happily; and the boy, his son, already wore the features of one over whose senses the strong liquor was momentarily obtaining the mastery.  But these signs did not persuade him into any relaxation of his labors; on the contrary, encouraged by success, he plied the draughts more frequently and freely than before, and with additional evidence of the influence of the potation upon those who drank, when he found that he was enabled, unperceived, to deposit the contents of his own tumbler, in most instances, under the table around which they gathered.  In the cloud of smoke encircling them, and sent up from their several pipes, Bunce could perceive the face of his colleague in the conspiracy peering in occasionally upon the assembly, and at length, on some slight pretence, he approached the aperture agreeably to the given signal, and received from the hands of the landlord a vial containing a strong infusion of opium, which he placed cautiously in his bosom, and awaited the moment of more increased stupefaction to employ it.  So favorably had the liquor operated by this time upon the faculties of all, that the elder Brooks grew garrulous and full of jest at the expense of his son—­who now, completely overcome, had sunk down with his head upon the table in a profound slumber.  The pedler joined, as well as Tongs, in the merriment—­this latter personage, by the way, having now put himself completely under the control of the ardent spirit, and exhibiting all the appearance of a happy madness.  He howled like the wolf, imitated sundry animals, broke out into catches of song, which he invariably failed to finish, and, at length, grappling his brother-in-law, Brooks, around the neck, with both arms, as he sat beside him, he swore by all that was strong in Monongahely, he should give them a song.

“That’s jest my idee, now, Master Tongs.  A song is a main fine thing, now, to fill up the chinks.  First a glass, then a puff or two, and then a song.”

Brooks, who, in backwood parlance, was “considerably up a stump”—­that is to say, half drunk—­after a few shows of resistance, and the utterance of some feeble scruples, which were all rapidly set aside by his companions, proceeded to pour forth the rude melody which follows:—­

    THE HOW-D’YE-DO BOY.

      “For a how-d’ye-do boy, ’tis pleasure enough
       To have a sup of such goodly stuff—­
       To float away in a sky of fog,
       And swim the while in a sea of grog;
               So, high or low,
               Let the world go,
    The how-d’ye-do boy don’t care for it—­no—­no—­no—­no.”