A TASTE OF AUTHORITY.
I have often wished I were an expert at something. How I envy the man who, before ordering a suit of clothes from his tailor, seizes the proffered sample of cloth and tugs at it in a knowledgable manner, smells it at close quarters with deep inhalations and finally, if he is very brave, pulls out a thread and ignites it with a match. Whereupon the tailor, abashed and discomfited, produces for the lucky expert from the interior of his premises that choice bale of pre-war quality which he was keeping for his own use.
I confided this yearning of mine to Rottenbury the other evening. Rottenbury is a man of the world and might, I thought, be able to help me.
"My dear fellow," he said, "in these days of specialisation one has to be brought up in the business to be an expert in anything, whether cloth or canaries or bathroom tiling. Knowledge of this kind is not gained in a moment."
"Can you help me?" I asked.
"As regards tea, I can," he replied. "Jorkins over there is in the tea business. If you like I'll get him to put you up to the tricks of tea-tasting."
"I should be awfully glad if you would," said I. "We never get any decent tea at home."
Jorkins appeared to be a man of direct and efficient character. I saw Rottenbury speak to him and the next moment he was at my elbow.
"Watch me carefully," said Jorkins, "and listen to what I say. Take a little leaf into the palm of your left hand. Rub it lightly with the fingers and gaze earnestly thus. Apply your nose and snuff up strongly. Pick out a strand and bite through the leaf slowly with the front teeth, thus. Just after biting pass the tip of the tongue behind the front teeth and along the palate, completing the act of deglutition. Sorry I must go now. Good day."
Now I felt I was on the right track. I practised the thing a few times before a glass, paying special attention to the far-away poetical look which Jorkins wore during the operation.
At the tea-shop the man behind the counter willingly showed me numbers of teas. I snatched a handful of that which he specially recommended and began the ceremony. I took a little into the palm of my left-hand and gazed at it earnestly; I rubbed it lightly with my fingers; I picked up a strand and bit through the leaf slowly with the front teeth. Just after biting I passed the tongue behind the front teeth and along the palate, completing the act of deglutition.
So far as I could judge it was very good tea, but it would never do to accept the first sample offered; I must let the shopman see that he was up against one of the mandarins of the trade. So I said with severity, "Please don't show me any more common stuff; I want the best you have."
The man looked at me curiously and I saw his face twitching; he was evidently about to speak.
"Kindly refrain from expostulating," I went on; "content yourself with showing me your finest blend."
He went away to the back of the shop, muttering; clearly he recognised defeat, for when he returned he carried a small chest.
"Try this," said he, and I knew that he was boiling with baffled rage.
I took a handful and once more went through the whole ceremony. It was nauseating, but the man was obviously impressed. At the conclusion of my performance I assumed a look of satisfaction. "Give me five pounds of that," said I with the air of a conqueror.
Next time I met Rottenbury I told him of my success.
"Oh, Jorkins put you up to the trick, did he?"
"He did. He taught me to titillate, to triturate, to masticate, to deglute—everything."
"And with what result?"
"With the result that I have in my possession five pounds of the finest tea that the greatest experts have blended from the combined products of Assam and China."
"Tea?" he asked.
"Yes, tea of course. You didn't suppose that I was talking of oysters?"
"Did I tell you Jorkins was a tea-taster?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, he's not. He's in tobacco."
"Alured," said my wife, "I wish you wouldn't buy things for the house. That tea is low-grade sweepings."
LE GRAND PENSEUR.
(With apologies to the late Auguste Rodin.)
Advertising enthusiast on his holiday seeking inspiration for a new advertisement for the Underground Railway.
"Sir Otto Beit has returned to London from South Africa, where he turned the first sot of the new university."—Daily Paper.
Turned him out, we trust.
"In a brilliant peroration the Prime Minister warned his hearers that a nation was known by its soul and not by its asses."—South African Paper.
Yet some of our politicians seem to think that England is not past braying for.
"The doings (or rather sayings!) in the Legislature we are watching with sympathy and some impatience, much as a bachelor bears with the gambling of children who come to the drawing-room for an hour before dinner."—Weekly Paper.
And the worst of it is that the Legislature is gambling with our money.
"Miss ——, director of natural science studies at Newnham College, Oxford, will preside."—Daily Paper.
We are glad to hear of this new women's college at Oxford, but surely they might have chosen a more original name for it.
A.G.J. writes: "Your picture of 'Come unto these Yellow Sands' in the number for August 4th explains for the first time the obscure following line, 'The Wild Waves Whist.'"
"I have not seen you at church for two Sundays, John."
"No, Sir. No offence t'you, but oi a-bin doin' t' chapel passon's garden, so missus thought we'd better give 'im a turn."