We sat down to dinner. My brass candelabra, each with three candles, lit up the festive board: a wood fire blazing on the hearth threw a warm glow over the room: the white walls cast back the light; and the cosy room, with crimson curtains drawn over door and windows, made us almost forget Afghanistan, and we lost, if only for a time, the feeling of insecurity in which we were living.
We had soup, tinned salmon, partridges, roast mutton, anchovy toast, plum pudding all blazing, and fruit. Then came the champagne. With subdued but proud excitement we cut the wire and waited for the cork to pop—it did not pop. We eased it a little with our thumb, and waited. We patted the bottle gently; then shook it—and still waited. The Armenian, standing by, smiled.
“You might bring a corkscrew,” I said, carelessly; “the cork is evidently hard.”
He produced a corkscrew with suspicious readiness, and I proceeded to carefully insert it. Oh, yes, the cork came out easily enough. It was not the fault of the cork. But the champagne!—Did you ever taste champagne that hadn’t any fizz in it? It is beastly.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked the Armenian, when he had tasted it.
“No-thing, Sir!” he said. “He in Hospital ’leven years, all his strength gone away.”
We “passed” the champagne; whisky was good enough for us.
I told the Armenian that it was only blue-blooded Dukes like himself who could drink flat champagne.
“Sir, he is not flat; very good sherbet he is; I like him.”