An hour later Pegloe's black boy presented himself to the judge.
He came bearing a gift, and the gift appropriately enough was a
square case bottle of respectable size. The judge was greatly
touched by this attention, but he began by making a most
temperate use of the tavern-keeper's offering; then as the
formidable document he was preparing took shape under his hand he
more and more lost that feeling of Spartan fortitude which had at
first sustained him in the presence of temptation. He wrote and
sipped in complete and quiet luxury, and when at last he had
exhausted the contents of the bottle it occurred to him that it
would be only proper personally to convey his thanks to Pegloe.
Perhaps he was not uninspired in this by ulterior hopes; if so,
they were richly rewarded. The resources of the City Tavern were
suddenly placed at his disposal. He attributed this to a variety
of causes all good and sufficient, but the real reason never
suggested itself, indeed it was of such a perfidious nature that
the judge, open and generous-minded, could not have grasped it.
By six o'clock he was undeniably drunk; at eight he was sounding
still deeper depths of inebriety with only the most confused
memory of impending events; at ten he collapsed and was borne
up-stairs by Pegloe and his black boy to a remote chamber in the
kitchen wing. Here he was undressed and put to bed, and the
tavernkeeper, making a bundle of his clothes, retired from the
room, locking the door after him, and the judge was doubly a
prisoner.
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