"Now let us see," said Mr. Prohack, starting at once upon the packages.
"Don't waste that string, dad," Sissie enjoined him anxiously.
"Eh? What do you say?" murmured Mr. Prohack, carefully cutting string on all sides of all packages, and tearing first-rate brown paper into useless strips. He produced from the packages four bottles of champagne of four different brands, a quantity of pâté de foie gras, a jar of caviare, and several bunches of grapes that must have been grown under the most unnatural and costly conditions.
"What ever's this?" Sissie demanded, uneasily.
"Arthur!" said Eve. "Whatever's the meaning of this?"
"It has a deep significance," replied Mr. Prohack. "The only fault I have to find with it is that it has arrived rather late—and yet perhaps, like Blücher, not too late. You can call it a wedding present if you choose, daughter. Or if you choose you can call it simply caviare, pâté de foie gras, grapes and champagne. I really have not had the courage to give you a wedding present," he continued, "knowing how particular you are about ostentation. But I thought if I sent something along that we could all join in consuming instantly, I couldn't possibly do any harm."
"We haven't any champagne glasses," said Sissie coldly.
"Champagne glasses, child! You ought never to drink champagne out of champagne glasses. Tumblers are the only thing for champagne. Some tumblers, Ozzie. And a tin-opener. You must have a tin-opener. I feel convinced you have a tin-opener. Upon my soul, Eve, I was right after all. I am hungry, but my hunger is nothing to my thirst. I'm beginning to suspect that I must be the average sensual man."
"Arthur!" Eve warned him. "If you eat any of that caviare you're bound to be ill."
"Not if I mix it with pâté de foi gras, my pet. It is notorious that they are mutual antidotes, especially when followed by the grape cure. Now, ladies and Ozzie, don't exasperate me by being coy. Fall to! Ingurgitate. Ozzie, be a man for a change." Mr. Prohack seemed to intimidate everybody to such an extent that Sissie herself went off to secure tumblers.