Every now and then, in these days, the boys used to tell me I ought to get one Jim Blaine to tell me the stirring story of his grandfather's old ram--but they always added that I must not mention the matter unless Jim was drunk at the time--just comfortably and sociably drunk.

They kept this up until my curiosity was on the rack to hear the story.

I got to haunting Blaine; but it was of no use, the boys always found fault with his condition; he was often moderately but never satisfactorily drunk.
I never watched a man's condition with such absorbing interest, such anxious solicitude; I never so pined to see a man uncompromisingly drunk before.

At last, one evening I hurried to his cabin, for I learned that this time his situation was such that even the most fastidious could find no fault with it--he was tranquilly, serenely, symmetrically drunk--not a hiccup to mar his voice, not a cloud upon his brain thick enough to obscure his memory.

As I entered, he was sitting upon an empty powder-keg, with a clay pipe in one hand and the other raised to command silence.