“Comrades,” said Hanno, with the air of an orator, “hear me too on that subject: three words will settle the question to men of sense. The merchant was a regular trader. Will any man who knows the world, and has brains an atom clearer than those with which fate has gifted my virtuous friend, believe that I, a regular liver by the merchant, would extinguish that by which I live? Sensible physicians never kill a patient while he can pay; sensible kings never exterminate a province when it can produce anything in the shape of a tax; sensible women never pray for the extinction of our sex until they despair of getting husbands; sensible husbands never wish their wives out of the world while they can get anything by their living: so, sensible men of our profession will never put a merchant under water until they can make nothing by his remaining above it. I have, for instance, raised contributions on that same trader every summer these five years; and, by the blessing of fortune, hope to have the same thing to say for five times as many years to come. No, I would not see any man touch a hair of his head. In six months he will have a cargo again, and I shall meet him with as much pleasure as ever.”
The Carthaginian was highly applauded.
“Malek, you don’t drink,” cried the Arab to a gigantic Ethiopian toward the end of the table. “Here, I pledge you in the very wine that was marked for the Emperor’s cellar.”
Malek tasted it, and sent back a cup in return.
“The Emperor’s wine may be good enough for him,” was the message; “but I prefer the wine yonder, marked for the Emperor’s butler.”
The verdict was fully in favor of the Ethiopian.
“In all matters of this kind,” said Malek, with an air of supreme taste, “I look first to the stores of the regular professors—the science of life is in the masters of the kitchen and the cellar. Your emperors and procurators, of course, must be content with what they can get. But the man who wishes to have the first-rate wine should be on good terms with the butler. I caught this sample on my last voyage after the imperial fleet. Nero never had such wine on his table.”
He indulged himself in a long draft of this exclusive luxury, and sank on his couch, with his hand clasping the superbly embossed flagon—a part of his prize.
The Ethiopian’s Taint