There must have been some joke hidden in the question, for the Consul began to laugh; but before long he stammered out, "I am choking, Dick; will you pull me out, you fiend?"
The joke about the Burgundy was as follows. Once when the young Consul had crept in among the bottles, to look for something very particular, he managed to knock his head against one which lay in the rack above so hard that it broke, and the whole bottle of Burgundy ran down his neck. Every time any allusion was made to this mishap, a meaning smile passed between the brothers, and Richard was even so careless as sometimes to allude to it when others were present. For instance, if they were sitting at dinner, and the conversation turned upon red wines, he would say, "Well, my brother has his own peculiar way of drinking Burgundy;" and then would follow a series of mysterious allusions and laughter between the two, which usually ended in a fit of coughing.
The young people had several times tried to get at this joke about the Burgundy, but always in vain. Miss Cordsen, who had been obliged that day to get a clean shirt for the Consul, was the only one in the secret; but Miss Cordsen could hold her tongue about more serious matters than that.
At last the Consul came out again, laughing and sputtering, his waistcoat covered with dust, and his hair full of cobwebs. When they had had a good laugh over their joke--it was well the walls were so thick--Richard, on whom the duty always devolved, uncorked the first bottle with the greatest care and skill.
"H'm! h'm!" said the Consul, "that is a curious bouquet."
"I declare, the wine has gone off," said Richard, spluttering.
"Bah! right you are, Dick," said Christian Frederick, spluttering in his turn.
Uncle Richard opened the second bottle, put his nose to it, and said approvingly, "Madeira!" and in a moment the golden wine was sparkling in the old-fashioned Dutch glasses.
"Ah! that's quite another thing," said the young Consul, taking his usual place astride of the old rocking-horse.
The rocking-horse was a relic of their childhood. "They used to make everything more solid in those days," said Christian Frederick; and when some years previously the horse had been found amongst a lot of rubbish, the Consul had had it brought down to the cellar. For many a long year he had sat on this horse, drinking the old wine out of the same old glasses with his brother, who sat in the rickety armchair, which cracked under his weight, laughing and telling anecdotes of their boyhood. He never got such wine anywhere else, and no room ever appeared so brilliant in his eyes as the low-vaulted cellar with its two smoky lights.