"Immodest words admit but _this_ defence-- That want of decency is want of sense."
Here the governor caught Ben in his arms as a delighted father would his son, calling out at the same time to the captain, "How greatly am I obliged to you, sir, for bringing me to an acquaintance with this charming boy? O! what a delightful thing it would be for us old fellows to converse with sprightful youth if they were but all like him!--But the d----l of it is, most parents are as blind as bats to the true glory and happiness of their children. Most parents never look higher for their sons than to see them delving like muckworms for money; or hopping about like jay-birds, in fine feathers. Hence their conversation is generally no better than froth and nonsense."
After several other handsome compliments on Ben, and the captain expressing a wish to be going, the governor shook hands with Ben, begging at the same time that he would for ever consider him as one of his fastest friends, and also never came to New-York without coming to see him.
On returning to the tavern, he hastened into his chamber, where he found his drunken comrade, poor Collins, in a fine perspiration, and considerably sobered, owing to the refrigerating effects of a pint of strong sage tea, with a tea-spoonful of saltpetre, which Ben, before he set out to the governor's, had pressed on him as a remedy he had somewhere read, much in vogue among the London topers, to _cool off_ after a rum fever. Collins appeared still to have enough of brandy in him for a frolic; but when Ben came to tell him of the amiable governor Burnet, in whose company, at his own palace, he had spent a most delightful evening; and also to remind him of the golden opportunity he had lost, of forming an acquaintance with that noble gentleman, poor Collins wept bitterly.
Ben was exceedingly affected to see him in tears, and endeavoured to comfort him. But he refused comfort. He said, "if this had been the _first time_, he should not himself think much of it; but he candidly confessed, that for a long time he had been guilty of it, though till of late he had always kept it to himself, drinking in his chamber. But now he felt at times," he said, "an awful apprehension that he was a _lost man_. His cravings for liquor were so strong on the one hand, and on the other his powers of resistance so feeble, that it put him fearfully in mind of the dismal state of a poor wretch, within the fatal attraction of a whirlpool, whose resistless suction, in spite of all his feeble efforts, was hurrying him down to sure and speedy destruction."