Wine-Tasters
The wine at length set the conversation flowing, and from the merits of the various vintages the speakers diverged into the general subjects of politics and their profession; on the former of which they visited all parties with tolerably equal ridicule; and on the latter, declared unanimously that the only cause worthy of a man of sense was the cause for which they were assembled round that table. The next stage was the more hazardous one of personal jocularity; yet even this was got over with but a few murmurs from the parties suffering. Songs and toasts to themselves, their loves, and their enterprises in all time to come relieved the drier topics; and all was good fellowship until one unlucky goblet of spoiled wine soured the banquet.
“So, this you call Chian,” exclaimed a broad-built figure, whose yellow hair and blue eyes showed him to be a son of the North; “may I be poisoned,” and he made a hideous grimace, “if more detestable vinegar ever was brewed; let me but meet the merchant, and I shall teach him a lesson that he will remember when next he thinks of murdering men at their meals. Here, baboon, take it; it is fit only for such as you.”
He flung the goblet point-blank at the head of a negro, who escaped it only by bounding to one side with the agility of the ape that he much resembled.
“Bad news, Vladomir, for our winter’s stock, for half of it is Chian,” said a dark-featured and brilliant-eyed Arab, who sat at the head of the table. “Ho! Syphax, fill round from that flagon, and let us hold a council of war upon the delinquent wine.”
The slave dexterously changed the wine; it was poured round, pronounced first-rate, and the German was laughed at remorselessly.
“I suppose I am not to believe my own senses,” remonstrated Vladomir.
“Oh! by all means, as long as you keep them,” said one, laughing.
“Will you tell me that I don’t know the difference between wine and that poison?”