Pagina 187 van 896

Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great

is the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a

moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one

man would swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment

to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these

days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the

law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its

Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast

shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice, behind his

compeers in this particular, any more than in the drier parts of

the legal race.