During this speculative inventory, Warburton's face was gravely set; indeed, it pictured his exact feelings. He was grave. He even wanted Pierre's approval. He was about to pass through a very trying ordeal; he might not even pass through it. There was no deceiving his colonel's eyes, hang him! Whatever had induced fate to force this old Argus-eyed soldier upon the scene? He glanced into the kitchen mirror. He instantly saw the salient flaw in his dress. It was the cravat. Tie it as he would, it never approached the likeness of the conventional cravat of the waiter. It still remained a polished cravat, a worldly cravat, the cravat seen in ball-rooms, drawing-rooms, in the theater stalls and boxes, anywhere but in the servants' hall. Oh, for the ready-made cravat that hitched to the collar-button! And then there was that servant's low turned-down collar, glossy as celluloid. He felt as diffident in his bare throat as a debutante feels in her first decollete ball-gown, not very well covered up, as it were. And, heaven and earth, how appallingly large his hands had grown, how clumsy his feet! Would the colonel expose him? Would he keep silent? This remained to be found out: wherein lay the terror of suspense.
"Remem_bair_," went on Monsieur Pierre, after a pause, feeling that he had a duty to fulfil and a responsibility to shift to other shoulders than his own, "remem_bair_, eef you spill zee soup, I keel you. You carry zee tureen in, zen you deesh out zee soup, and sairve. Zee oystaires should be on zee table t'ree minutes before zee guests haf arrive'. Now, can you make zee American cocktail?"
"I can,"—with a ghost of a smile.
"Make heem,"—with a pompous wave of the hand toward the favorite ingredients.
"What kind?"
"Vot kind! Eez zare more cocktails, zen?"
"Only two that are proper, the manhattan and the martini."
"Make zee martini; I know heem."
"But cocktails ought not be mixed before serving."
"I say, make zee one cocktail,"—coldly and skeptically. "I test heem."