eccentric at that time I have never been wholly
able to define, but I recall accurately the most
trivial occurrences of our meeting and the very
subject-matter of our conversation. I even remember
the very words in which he declined a drink
from my traveling-flask--for "It's a raw day," I
said, by way of gratuitous excuse for offering it.
"Yes," he said, smilingly motioning the temptation
aside; "it is a raw day; but you're rather young in
years to be doctoring the weather--at least you'd
better change the treatment--they'll all be raw days
for you after a while!" I confess that I even
felt an inward pity for the man as I laughingly
drained his health and returned the flask to my
valise. But when I asked him, ten minutes later,
the nature of the business in which he was engaged,
and he handed me, in response and without comment,
the card of a wholesale liquor house, with
his own name in crimson letters struck diagonally
across the surface, I winked naively to myself and
thought "Ah-ha!" And as if reading my very
musings, he said: "Why, certainly, I carry a full
line of samples; but, my dear young friend, don't
imagine for a minute that I refuse your brand on
that account. You can rest assured that I have
nothing better in my cases. Whisky is whisky
wherever it is found, and there is no 'best'
whisky--not in all the world!"

Truly, I thought, this is an odd source for the