“He amuses me,” Sylvia said. “What are you going to have?”
“Well, I was going to have a grenadier, but really if that skelington opposite is going to look at me all night, I think I’ll take something stronger.”
“Try a cuirassier,” Sylvia suggested.
“Whatever’s that?”
“It’s the same relation to a curaçao that a grenadier is to a grenadine.”
“What I should really like is a nice little drop of whisky with a little tiddley bit of lemon; but there, I’ve noticed if you ask for whisky in Paris it causes a regular commotion. The waiter holds the bottle as if it was going to bite him, and the proprietor winks at him he’s pouring out too much, and I can’t abide those blue siphons. Sells they call them, and sells they are.”
“I shall order you a bock in a moment,” Sylvia threatened.
“Now don’t be unkind just because I made a slight complaint about being stared at. Perhaps they won’t make such a bother if I do have a little whisky. But there, I can’t resist it. It’s got a regular taste of London, whisky has.”
The man at the table leaned over suddenly and asked, in a tense voice:
“Scotch or Irish?”