“Digby is my Christian name,” interrupted I, “and you can call me by it.”
“Digby, I drink to your health; and if the wine had been only a little warmer, I 'd say I could not wish to do so in a more generous fluid. No fellow of your age knows how to air his Bordeaux; hot flannels to the caraffe before decanting are all that is necessary, and let your glasses also be slightly warmed. To sip such claret as this, and then turn one's eyes to that champagne yonder in the ice-pail, is like the sensation of a man who in his honeymoon fancies how happy he will be one of these days, en secondes noces. Don't you feel a sense of triumphant enjoyment at this moment? Is there not something at your heart that says, 'Hodnig and Oppovich, I despise you! To the regions I soar in you cannot come! To the blue ether I have risen, your very vision cannot reach!' Eh, boy! tell me this.”
“No; I don't think you have rightly measured my feelings. On the whole, I rather suspect I bear a very good will to these same people who have enabled me to have these comforts.”
“You pretend, then, to what they call gratitude?”
“I have that weakness.”
“I could as soon believe in the heathen mythology! I like the man who is kind to me while he is doing the kindness, and I could, if occasion served, be kind to him in turn; but to say that I could retain such a memory of the service after years that it would renew in me the first pleasant sensations it created, and with these sensations the goodwill to requite them, is downright rubbish. You might as well tell me that I could get drank simply by remembering the orgie I assisted at ten years ago.”
“I protest against your sentiment and your logic too.”
“Then we won't dispute the matter. We'll talk of something we can agree upon. Let us abuse Sara.”
“If you do, you'll choose some other place to do it.”
“What, do you mean to tell me that you can stand the haughty airs and proud pretensions of the young Jewess?”