1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

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.