‘Exactly,’ said Fred Luffington, now restored to good humour, and very much amused by his extraordinary companion. ‘But as we all haven’t a key to such cellars, it is safer to stick to the harmless grape-juice than court gout with doctored port. I’m for the foreigners myself, whatever their domestic sins may be. Port is as heavy as your climate, your women, your literature.’
Mrs. Matcham, partly reassured, entered with two bottles and one of those hideous green glasses described as claret glasses. This she placed in front of Mr. Luffington, and taking a bottle from her hand, Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy filled the unsightly chalice. Luffington drank his wine appreciatively, pronounced it rare, and wandered off upon the exciting topic of vintages. He no longer wondered at the prestige of a man who could command such claret.
‘You’re a Londoner, I suppose—an impudent Cockney?’ said Mr. Fitzroy, observing him as he put aside the green glass and stretched behind for his toilet tumbler. ‘Right you are there, my friend. One of the pleasures of good wine is to watch the play of light in its depths of colour. It passes my imagination how such complacent ugliness as this came to be manufactured.’ He took the glass in his fingers, stared at it, shook his head and flung it into the grate.
‘Mrs. Matcham may object to such summary justice,’ laughed Luffington.
‘Mrs. Matcham object to any act of mine, sir? That would be a revolution. I’ve only to say the word, and both Mrs. Matcham and John Graham are ready to take you by the scruff of the neck and plant you in the middle of the common.’
‘Instead, we sit pledging each other in the best of wines, and your antecedent ill-humour is, I hope, carried off, once you have named a continental Englishman, ‘Impudent Cockney’.’
Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy’s sombre eyes were instantly shot with mirth. He smiled delightfully, and as he did so, looked less and less of a Briton. It was the lovely roguish smile of a child that flashed from wreathed lips and ran up like light to the broad brows arched expressively. You would have forgiven him murder on the spot, much less a rude speech. He dipped into his glass, and sipped vigour therefrom for a fresh onslaught.
‘Ah, the continent! Generally means France, and France, of course, means Paris, and Paris, by God, means every devilry under the sun. Barricades, Bastilles, Julys, Septembers, baggy red breeches, Cockades, Marseillaises, Communism, Atheism, in a word, hell’s own mischief.’
‘I commend your mental repertory, sir. It is a neat historical survey extending over the past hundred years. We will say nothing of its justice. When our aim is the saying of much in little, we must be content to dispense with justice. But at least permit me to remark that Paris does not mean the continent for me—very much the reverse.’
‘Then you ought to have sense enough to be drinking port instead of one of your washy French castles,’ roared Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, attacking his second bottle after he had thrust Fred’s second under his nose.