None can tell when the magistrate would have cast anchor, if Don Roderick had not interrupted him. “Signor Podestà,” said he, “and you, gentlemen, a bumper to the Count Duke, and you shall then judge if the wine is worthy of the personage.” The podestà bowed low in gratitude for an honour he considered as paid to himself in part for his eloquent harangue.
“May Don Gaspero Guzman, Count de Olivares, Duke of St. Lucar, live a thousand years!” said he, raising his glass.
“May he live a thousand years!” exclaimed all the company.
“Help the father,” said Don Roderick.
“Excuse me,” replied he, “I could not——”
“How!” said Don Roderick; “will you not drink to the Count Duke? Would you have us believe that you hold to the Navarre party?”
This was the contemptuous term applied to the French interest at the time of Henry IV.
There was no reply to be made to this, and the father was obliged to taste the wine. All the guests were loud in its praise, except the doctor, who had kept silence. “Eh! doctor,” asked Don Roderick, “what think you of it?”
“I think,” replied the doctor, withdrawing his ruddy and shining nose from the glass, “that this is the Olivares of wines: there is not a liquor resembling it in all the twenty-two kingdoms of the king our master, whom God protect! I maintain that the dinners of the most illustrious Signor Don Roderick exceed the suppers of Heliogabalus, and that scarcity is banished for ever from this palace, where reigns a perpetual and splendid abundance.”
“Well said! bravo! bravo!” exclaimed with one voice the guests; but the word scarcity, which the doctor had accidentally uttered, suggested a new and painful subject. All spoke at once:—“There is no famine,” said one, “it is the speculators who——”