§7
Next day I awake with a headache, clearly due to the punch. That comes of mixing liquors. Punch is poison; I vow never to touch it in future.
My servant, Peter, comes in. “You came in last night, Sir, wearing someone else’s hat, not so good a hat as your own.”
“The deuce take my hat!”
“Perhaps I had better go where you dined last night and enquire?”
“Do you suppose, my good man, that one of the party went home bare-headed?”
“It can do no harm—just in case.”
Now it dawns upon me that the hat is a pretext, and that Peter has been invited to the scene of last night’s revelry.
“All right, you can go. But first tell the cook to send me up some pickled cabbage.”
“I suppose, Sir, the birthday party went off well last night?”
“I should rather think so! There never was such a party in all my time at College.”
“I suppose you won’t want me to go to the University with you to-day?”
I feel remorse and make no reply.
“Your papa asked me why you were not up yet. But I was a match for him. ‘He has a headache,’ I said, ‘and complained when I called him; so I left the blinds down.’ And your papa said I was right.”
“For goodness sake, let me go to sleep! You wanted to go, so be off with you!”
“In a minute, Sir; I’ll just order the cabbage first.”
Heavy sleep again seals my eyelids, and I wake in two hours’ time, feeling a good deal fresher. I wonder what my friends are doing. Ketcher and Ogaryóv were to spend the night where we dined. I must admit that the punch was very good; but its effect on the head is annoying. To drink it out of a tumbler is a mistake; I am quite determined in future to drink it always out of a liqueur-glass.
Meanwhile my father has read the papers and interviewed the cook as usual.
“Have you a headache to-day?” he asks.
“Yes, a bad one.”
“Perhaps you’ve been working too hard.”
But the way he asked the question showed he did not believe that.
“Oh, I forgot: you were dining with your friends last night, eh?”
“Yes, I was.”
“A birthday party? And they treated you handsomely, I’ve no doubt. Did you have soup made with Madeira? That sort of thing is not to my taste. I know one of your young friends is too often at the bottle; but I can’t imagine where he gets the taste from. His poor father used to give a dinner on his birthday, the twenty-ninth of June, and ask all his relations; but it was always a very modest, decent affair. But this modern fashion of champagne and sardines à l’huile—I don’t like to see it. Your other friend, that unfortunate young Ogaryóv, is even worse. Here he is, left to himself in Moscow, with his pockets full of money. He is constantly sending his coachman, Jeremy, for wine; and the coachman has no objection, because the dealer gives him a present.”
“Well, I did have lunch with Ogaryóv. But I don’t think my headache can be due to that. I think I will take a turn in the open air; that always does me good.”
“By all means, but I hope you will dine at home.”
“Certainly; I shan’t be long.”