“A little brandy will help it.”

“I hope so.”

When the mint julep was ready, Hobart took it in his hand and retired to a table in the corner of the room, and the man he had met went with him.

“Ain’t you afraid to tamper with liquor?” asked this person, a little seriously, as he observed the relish with which Hobart sipped the brandy.  Some thoughts had occurred to himself that were not very pleasant.

“Oh, no.  Not in the least,” replied Mr. Hobart.  “I only take it as a medicine, under my physician’s order; and I can assure you that the taste is quite as disagreeable as rhubarb would be.  I believe the old fondness has altogether died out.”

“I’m afraid it never dies out,” said the man, whose eyes told him plainly enough, that it had not died out in the case of the individual before him, notwithstanding his averment on the subject.

“I feel much better now,” said Mr. Hobart, after he had nearly exhausted his glass.  “I had such a cold sensation in my stomach, accompanied by a very disagreeable pain.  But both are now gone.  This brandy and mint have acted like a charm.  Dr. L—­understands the matter clearly.  It is fortunate that I saw him this morning.  I would not have dared to touch brandy, unless under medical advice; and, but for the timely use of it, I might have been dangerously ill with this fatal epidemic.”

After sitting a little while longer, the two men retired through the back entrance to escape observation.

“How quickly these temperance men seize hold of any excuse to get a glass of brandy,” said the bar-keeper to a customer, as soon as Hobart had retired, laughing in a half sneer as he spoke.  “They come creeping in through our back way, and all of them have a pain!  Ha! ha!”

“I’ve taken a glass of brandy and water, every day for the last five years,” replied the man to whom this was addressed, “and I continue it now.  But I can tell you what, if I’d been an abstainer, you wouldn’t catch me pouring it into my stomach now.  Not I!  All who do so are more liable to the disease.”

“So I think,” said the bar-tender.  “But every one to his liking.  It puts money in our till.  We’ve done a better business since the cholera broke out, than we’ve done these three years.  If it were to continue for a twelve month we would make a fortune.”

This was concluded with a coarse laugh, and then he went to attend to a new customer for drink.

For all Mr. Hobart had expressed himself so warmly in favor of brandy, and had avowed his freedom from the old appetite, he did not feel altogether right about the matter.  There was a certain pressure upon his feelings that he could not well throw off.  When he went home in the evening, he perceived a shadow on the brow of his wife; and the expression of her eyes, when she looked at him, annoyed and troubled him.