“I’ve got some,” said Harry innocently, producing his case, and taking one himself. He lit it.
“I say, you’d better wait,” Claude began, when the hoarse voice of Sir Thomas interrupted him. “It’s dishonour to the wine,” he said. “Mr. Osborne, sir, your wine is being dishonoured by that young gentleman opposite.”
Harry did not catch the meaning of this at once, and was “put at his ease again” by Mr. Osborne before he knew that he was not there already.
“You’re all right, Mr. Franklin,” said his host, “though in general we don’t smoke till the wine has finished going round. But if my guests mayn’t do what they like in my house, I’d sooner not have my friends round my table at all Drink your wine, Sir Thomas, and let those smoke who choose.”
The second bottle, which was not to leave Mr. Osborne’s cellar denuded, had appeared before this, and the indignant drinker cooled down over it. A faint little squeak of laughter was heard from Alfred, who had sent for his plaid again, and till now had sat perfectly silent, emptying and filling his glass as many times as possible. At this point he produced a large cigar and lit it himself.
“I disagree with Sir Thomas,” he said. “Good tobacco and good wine go very well together, very well indeed,” and he embarked on the nauseating combination. It was now half-past ten, and a message came in from the drawing-room as to whether the gentlemen would take their coffee in the dining room or have it with the music. This caused a break-up, the three young men, Austell, Claude, and Franklin going out, leaving the rest at the table.
“Those young fellows will please the ladies more than we old fogies would, hey, Sir Thomas?” said Mr. Osborne. “We’ll follow them by-and-by. It’s not every day that one meets one’s old friends, and has a glass of good wine together. Per, my boy, I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”
Per was doing this very adequately. He was a fat, white young man of nearly thirty, with an immensely high forehead from which the tide of hair had already receded far. He wore pince-nez and a large diamond ring, and looked rather older than he was and considerably stouter than he should have been. “Thank you, yes, dad,” he said. “I’m going strong.”
This furnished Sir Thomas, whose indignation over the cigarette had not quite yet subsided, with a text.
“Yes, my boy,” he said, “and long will you, when you’re not afraid of your dinner and your glass of wine. Half the young fellows I see now drink barley water to their dinner, and some of them don’t eat hardly no meat, and that’s why we’re losing the trade of the world as well as all the boat races and what not. In my day we ate our beef and drank our wine, and so did our fathers before us, and I never heard that we lost many boat races then.”