The waiter said he was “much oblige,” but who was to pay for the champagne?
The gentlemen who had partaken of the champagne nudged one another, but one of them was compassionate, and explained to the Councillor that the two bottles involved the expenditure of twenty-four shillings.
“Twenty-eight shillings,” the waiter murmured in a submissive, subject-to-the-correction-of-the-Court tone. The wine was Heidsieck of ‘74, he explained.
The Councillor gasped, and then smiled weakly. He had been made the subject of a jest more than once before, and he fancied he saw in the winks of the men around him, a loophole of escape from an untenable position.
“Come, come,” said he, “I’ve no more time to waste. Don’t you flatter yourselves that I can’t see this is a put-up job between you all and the waiter.”
“Pay the man the money and be hanged to you!” said an impetuous member of the party.
Just then the manager of the restaurant strolled up, and received with a polite smile the statement of the hospitable. Councillor regarding what he termed the barefaced attempt to swindle on the part of the German waiter.
“Sir,” said the manager, “the price of the wine is on the card. Here it is,”—he whipped a card out of his pocket. “‘Heidsieck—1874—14s.’”
The generous host fell back on a chair speechless.
Had any of his friends ever read Hamlet they would certainly not have missed quoting the lines: