"You might find that two could play at that game," I said, with my eye on him; and he flushed, but did not flinch.
"Is that a threat?" he asked. "Because if it is——;" and he turned as if to leave the room.
As I didn't know what, in the general reversal of things, might be the punishment here for threatening to retaliate on a waiter who proposed to punch one's head, and I wanted to finish my dinner, I said: "If you're disinclined for conversation you can have your own way."
We went through the rest of the ménu in silence, I enjoying the good things provided for me, and he serving me with the readiest attention to the matter in hand. We did not address another word to each other until he had carefully poured out from its basket-cradle a glass of the wonderful port.
I sipped it, and thought it just in the very least touched, and told him so. He took the glass, sniffed at the wine, and tasted it. "It's absolutely right," he said, "but of course you can have another bottle if you like."
"Thank you," I said, and began to wonder, rather uneasily, as he was away fetching it, if in some way I was not to pay pretty dearly for the remarkable treatment I was undergoing.
The second bottle of port was beyond criticism. When I had expressed my approval, the waiter put it on a little table by the side of the extremely easy chair, and indicated, but without saying so, that he wished to clear away. This he did, in complete silence; but before he finally left the room came over to where I was standing, and, holding out half a sovereign, said, still with the same inflection of contempt: "That's for yourself."
I took the coin in my hand, and said, somewhat after the manner of a cabman who has been offered twopence for a pour boire: "What do you call this?"
He flushed again, took it back, gave me half a crown instead, and then left the room.