“Meditating,” echoed Rose-Pompon, “Ninny Moulin is meditating. Be attentive!”
“He is meditating; he must be ill then!”
“What is he meditating? an illegal dance?”
“A forbidden Anacreontic attitude?”
“Yes, I am meditating,” returned Dumoulin, gravely; “I am meditating upon wine, generally and in particular—wine, of which the immortal Bossuet”—Dumoulin had the very bad habit of quoting Bossuet when he was drunk—“of which the immortal Bossuet says (and he was a judge of good liquor): ‘In wine is courage, strength joy, and spiritual fervor’—when one has any brains,” added Ninny Moulin, by way of parenthesis.
“Oh, my! how I adore your Bossuet!” said Rose-Pompon.
“As for my particular meditation, it concerns the question, whether the wine at the marriage of Cana was red or white. Sometimes I incline to one side, sometimes to the other—and sometimes to both at once.”
“That is going to the bottom of the question,” said Sleepinbuff.
“And, above all, to the bottom of the bottles,” added the Bacchanal Queen.
“As your majesty is pleased to observe; and already, by dint of reflection and research, I have made a great discovery—namely, that, if the wine at the marriage of Cana was red—”