As he sat down a perfect chorus of applause rent the air, and Faussett, anxious not to let so good an opportunity slip by, took occasion to fill Mr. Plan-tagenet's glass twice over in succession: once during the course of the boisterous song, and once at the end to reward his efforts.
The old man had been unusually circumspect, for him, at first, for he vaguely suspected in his own mind that Faussett might have asked him there on purpose to make him drunk; and though there was nothing he liked better than an opportunity of attaining that supreme end of his existence at somebody else's expense, he had still some faint sense of self-respect left, lingering somewhere in some unsuspected back corner of his poor old ruined personality, which made him loath to exhibit his shame and degradation before so many well-bred and gentlemanly young Oxonians. But as time wore on, and the lads applauded all his jokes and songs and stories to the echo, Mr. Plantagenet's heart began by degrees to soften. He was wronging these ingenuous and eminently companionable young fellows. He was over-suspicious in supposing they wanted to make fun of him or to get fun out of him. They had been naturally attracted and pleased by his marked social qualities and characteristics. They recognised in him, under all disguises of capricious fortune, a gentleman and a Plantagenet. He helped himself complacently to another glass of sherry. He held up the golden liquid and glanced askance at the light through it, then he took a delicate sip and rolled it on his palate appreciatively.
It was not very good sherry. An Oxford winemerchant's thirty-six shilling stuff (for undergraduate consumption) can hardly be regarded as a prime brand of Spanish vintage; but it was, at least, much better than Mr. Plantagenet had been in the habit of tasting for many years past, and perhaps his palate was hardly capable any longer of distinguishing between the nicer flavours of hocks or clarets. He put his glass down with rising enthusiasm.
'Excellent Amontillado!' he said, pursing up his lips with the air of a distinguished connoisseur. 'Ex-cellent Amontillado! It's a very long time since I tasted any better.'
Which was perfectly true, as far as it went, though not exactly in the nature of a high testimonial to the character of the wine.
Now, nothing pleases a boy of twenty, posing as a man, so much as to praise his port and sherry. Knowing nothing about the subject himself, and inwardly conscious of his own exceeding ignorance, he accepts the verdict of anybody who ventures upon having an opinion with the same easy readiness as the crowd at the Academy accepts the judgment of anyone present who says aloud, with dogmatic certainty, that any picture in the place is well or ill painted.
'It is good sherry,' Faussett repeated, much mollified. 'Have another glass!'
Mr. Plantagenet assented, and leaned back in an easy-chair as being the safest place from which to deliver at ease his aesthetic judgments for the remainder of that evening. For the wine-party was beginning now to arrive at the boisterous stage. There were more songs to follow, not all of them printable; and there was loud, dull laughter, and there was childish pulling of bonbon crackers, and still more childish shying of oranges at one another's heads across the centre table. The fun was waxing fast and furious. Mr. Plantagenet at the same time was waxing hilarious.
'Gentlemen,' he said, holding his glass a little obliquely in his right hand, and eyeing it with his head on one side in a very doubtful attitude—'Gentlemen.' And at that formal beginning a hush of expectation fell upon the flushed faces of the noisy lads, ready to laugh at the drunken old man who might have been the father of any one among them.
'Hush, hush, there! Mr. Plantagenet for a speech!' Faussett shouted aloud, drumming his glass on the table.