I am familiar with champagne and have no prejudices against it." The fate of the joke was not decided until two o'clock in the morning.
At that hour the Governor was serene, genial, comfortable, contented, happy and sober, although he was so full that he couldn't laugh without shedding champagne tears.

Also, at that hour the last joker joined his comrades under the table, drunk to the last perfection.

The Governor remarked, "This is a dry place, Sam, let's go and get something to drink and go to bed." The Governor's official menagerie had been drawn from the humblest ranks of his constituents at home--harmless good fellows who had helped in his campaigns, and now they had their reward in petty salaries payable in greenbacks that were worth next to nothing.

Those boys had a hard time to make both ends meet.

Orion's salary was eighteen hundred dollars a year, and he wouldn't even support his dictionary on it.