"That's the rule, sir, in all commercial rooms as I ever see," said the waiter.
The matter had been so extremely well put by Mr. Moulder, and that gentleman's words had carried with them so much conviction, that Dockwrath felt himself almost tempted to put down the money; as far as his sixteen children and general ideas of economy were concerned he would have done so; but his legal mind could not bear to be beaten. The spirit of litigation within him told him that the point was to be carried. Moulder, Gape, and Snengkeld together could not make him pay for wine he had neither ordered nor swallowed. His pocket was guarded by the law of the land, and not by the laws of any special room in which he might chance to find himself. "I shall pay two shillings for my dinner," said he, "and sixpence for my beer;" and then he deposited the half-crown.
"Do you mean us to understand," said Moulder, "that after forcing your way into this room, and sitting down along with gentlemen at this table, you refuse to abide by the rules of the room?" And Mr. Moulder spoke and looked as though he thought that such treachery must certainly lead to most disastrous results. The disastrous result which a stranger might have expected at the moment would be a fit of apoplexy on the part of the worthy president.
"I neither ordered that wine nor did I drink it," said Mr. Dockwrath, compressing his lips, leaning back in his chair, and looking up into one corner of the ceiling.
"The gentleman certainly did not drink the wine," said Kantwise, "I must acknowledge that; and as for ordering it, why that was done by the president, in course."
"Gammon!" said Mr. Moulder, and he fixed his eyes steadfastly upon his Vice. "Kantwise, that's gammon. The most of what you says is gammon."
"Mr. Moulder, I don't exactly know what you mean by that word gammon, but it's objectionable. To my feelings it's very objectionable. I say that the gentleman did not drink the wine, and I appeal to the gentleman who sits at the gentleman's right, whether what I say is not correct. If what I say is correct, it can't be—gammon. Mr. Busby, did that gentleman drink the wine, or did he not?"
"Not as I see," said Mr. Busby, somewhat nervous at being thus brought into the controversy. He was a young man just commencing his travels, and stood in awe of the great Moulder.
"Gammon!" shouted Moulder, with a very red face. "Everybody at the table knows he didn't drink the wine. Everybody saw that he declined the honour when proposed, which I don't know that I ever saw a gentleman do at a commercial table till this day, barring that he was a teetotaller, which is gammon too. But its P.P. here, as every commercial gentleman knows, Kantwise as well as the best of us."
"P.P., that's the rule," growled Snengkeld, almost from under the table.