“Well, never mind, go and dress for dinner, for you're half an hour behind time already.”
O'Shea was not sorry to have the excuse, and hurried off to make his toilet.
Freytag was aware that his guest was a “Milor',” and the dinner was very good, and the wine reasonably so; and the two, as they placed a little spider-table between them before the fire, seemed fully conscious of all the enjoyment of the situation.
Agincourt said, “Is not this jolly?” And so it was. And what is there jollier than to be about sixteen or seventeen years of age, with good health, good station, and ample means? To be launched into manhood, too, as a soldier, without one detracting sense of man's troubles and cares,—to feel that your elders condescend to be your equals, and will even accept your invitation to dinner!—ay, and more, practise towards you all those little flatteries and attentions which, however vapid ten years later, are positive ecstasies now!
But of all its glorious privileges there is not one can compare with the boundless self-confidence of youth, that implicit faith not alone in its energy and activity, its fearless contempt for danger, and its indifference to hardships, but, more strange still, in its superior sharpness and knowledge of life! Oh dear! are we not shrewd fellows when we matriculate at Christ Church, or see ourselves gazetted Cornet in the Horse Guards Purple? Who ever equalled us in all the wiles and schemes of mankind? Must he not rise early who means to dupe us? Have we not a registered catalogue of all the knaveries that have ever been practised on the unsuspecting? Truly have we; and if suspicion were a safeguard, nothing can harm us.
Now, Agincourt was a fine, true-hearted, generous young fellow,—manly and straightforward,—but he had imbibed his share of this tendency. He fancied himself subtle, and imagined that a nice negotiation could not be intrusted to better hands. Besides this, he was eager to impress Heathcote with a high opinion of his skill, and show that even a regular man of the world like O'Shea was not near a match for him.
“I 'm not going to drink that light claret such an evening as this,” said O'Shea, pushing away his just-tasted glass. “Let us have something a shade warmer.”
“Ring the bell, and order what you like.”
“Here, this will do,—'Clos Vougeot,'” said O'Shea, pointing out to the waiter the name on the wine carte.”
“And if that be a failure, I 'll fall back on brandy-and-water, the refuge of a man after bad wine, just as disappointed young ladies take to a convent. If you can drink that little tipple, Agincourt, you 're right to do it. You 'll come to Burgundy at forty, and to rough port ten years later; but you 've a wide margin left before that. How old are you?”