"Cider thirty years old!" exclaimed Chilvers. "You mean vinegar, don't you?" "I said cider, young man; an' when I say cider I mean cider," retorted Bishop, rather indignantly. "It is no more vinegar than brandy's vinegar, nor champagne's vinegar. Now, I don't reckon none of you, barring my old friend John Harding, here, ever tasted a drop of real hard cider. Oh, yes, Smith has, of course; but how about the rest of ye?" Carter, LaHume, Marshall, and Chilvers admitted that their idea of hard cider was a beverage which had started to ferment. Bishop placed his hand reverently on a blackened, time-charred cask. It was evident he was as proud of that possession as others might be of an authenticated Raphael. "I don't tap this here very often," he said, "but in honour of this occasion I'll let it run a bit. This here cider is fifty years old!" He drew off a pint or so in a stone jug, and we went out into the light to examine it. It was almost colourless, slightly amber in shade, if any tint can describe it. I had seen that sacred cask when a boy, and I recall now that Joe Bishop did not dare touch it, and there were few things of which he was afraid. We all solemnly sampled it from small glasses, which Bishop produced from some mysterious hiding place. "There is no taste to it," declared Chilvers. "It's smooth as oil, but it has no flavour." "Hasn't, eh?" smiled Bishop. "You just wait a minute and you'll get the bouquet--as you wine experts call it. It's one of these coming tastes, but when it hits you you cry for more." It was as the farmer said. There came to our palates the subtle gustatory perfume of apple blossoms. Within the old cask there had been stored the fragrance and the spell of the orchard of half a century agone. It was the wine of the apple; the favoured fruit of the gods. "Is it supposed to be intoxicating?" asked Marshall. Bishop laughed uproariously, and Harding joined in his merriment. "My boy," Bishop said, "it's as intoxicating as the feel of your sweetheart's cheek against your own, only it affects you in a different way. I've known a man to fill up on that smooth-tastin' and innocent lookin' stuff an' not come tew until he was on shipboard, an' half way to Cape Horn. Under its influence the secretary of a peace society would tackle the Japanese navy in a rowboat. From what I know about mythology I'm sure Mars drank it regular."