“I hardly deserve any breakfast!” said Donal, turning to the table; “but if you will stand by me, and read while I take my coffee, we shall save a little time so.”
“Yes, sir.—But your coffee must be quite cold! I will ring.”
“No, no; I must not waste any more time. A man who cannot drink cold coffee ought to come down while it is hot.”
“Forgue won’t drink cold coffee!” said Davie: “I don’t see why you should!”
“Because I prefer to do with my coffee as I please; I will not have hot coffee for my master. I won’t have it anything to me what humour the coffee may be in. I will be Donal Grant, whether the coffee be cold or hot. A bit of practical philosophy for you, Davie!”
“I think I understand you, sir: you would not have a man make a fuss about a trifle.”
“Not about a real trifle. The co-relative of a trifle, Davie, is a smile. But I would take heed whether the thing that is called a trifle be really a trifle. Besides, there may be a point in a trifle that is the egg of an ought. It is a trifle whether this or that is nice; it is a point that I should not care. With us highlanders it is a point of breeding not to mind what sort of dinner we have, but to eat as heartily of bread and cheese as of roast beef. At least so my father and mother used to teach me, though I fear that refinement of good manners is going out of fashion even with highlanders.”
“It is good manners!” rejoined Davie with decision, “—and more than good manners! I should count it grand not to care what kind of dinner I had. But I am afraid it is more than I shall ever come to!”
“You will never come to it by trying because you think it grand. Only mind, I did not say we were not to enjoy our roast beef more than our bread and cheese; that would be not to discriminate, where there is a difference. If bread and cheese were just as good to us as roast beef, there would be no victory in our contentment.”
“I see!” said Davie.—“Wouldn’t it be well,” he asked, after a moment’s pause, “to put one’s self in training, Mr. Grant, to do without things—or at least to be able to do without them?”