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DRINKS ANCIENT AND MODERN 25
in fast enough with the ordinary Quaffing Cups,
but drink in large Tankards whole draughts,
none to be left under severe penalties ; admiiing
him that will drink most, and hating him that
will not pledge them."
I once, in my salad days, assisted in the
attempt to make a German "foxed." There
were some half a dozen of us, nice boys all, and
we entertained this Teuton right royally. At
the banquet table the champagne was decanted,
and it was so arranged that our guest should
imbibe at least twice as much as anybody else.
Then we took him around thegreat city. At four
the next morning the German sat facing me in the
smoking-room ofa little social club. Everybody
else had gone home, more or less limp, or had
come to anchor in some police-station. And I
did not feel very well myself. And as the clock
chimed four, and the grey dawn stole in through
the Venetians in streaks, that German uprose in
all his majesty—he was six feet five inches and
broad in proportion—smote me hard on the back,
^
^ 1
tc XT
I
and enquired, in cheerful tones:
^^
Vhere can ve go to haf some fun?^
never " took on " any more of the children of
the Fatherland.
The Russians, Swedes, Danes, and other
Northerners—also during the seventeenth century
—we read, " exceed all the rest, having made the
drinking of Brandy, Aqua Vitae, Hydromel, Beer,
Mum, Meth, andother liquors in greatquantities,
so familiar to them that they usually drink our
countrymen to death."
" The Mahometans," the same writer tells us.