CHAPTER XXV.
SUPPER AT THE SILVER LEOPARD.
"Oh, all that I grant you; 'tis indeed a mockery of hospitality which moves a man to press his good things on his guest beyond his appetite; and the rascals were to blame—much to blame. But, my good Master Lee, you're absolutely no trencherman."
And as he spoke, Master Alworth laid a tempting cut from the huge sirloin before him upon Lawrence Lee's plate. "A strapping fellow of your inches," he went on, "should know better how to dispose of a glass, and to ply his knife and fork."
"Nay," answered Lee, toying with the implements in question till he seemed to be making grand havoc with the slice of beef. "But I have supped excellently," and he glanced in courteous admiration at the temptingly loaded table. "Such good things would almost charm a dead man."
"And 'tis almost what he looks," thought the goldsmith, as he secretly scanned Lee's colourless face; colourless save where on either cheek two spots burned crimson red.
A good servant.
"Though I doubt dead men's eyes never shone like his," he mentally added. "What the mischief ails the lad?" but aloud he only replied in well-pleased tones: "They're wholesome enough; and to speak no treason, Master Lee, the king's own kitchen, at least here in Newmarket, boasts not such a hand as my old Margery's at turning a venison pasty; try a morsel of it. No? well then, drink, man, drink. There's no finer colouring for white cheeks like your's, than a glass of my old Tokay. What! you won't neither?" said his hospitable host with a shrug, as Lee drew the massive silver-gilt goblet smilingly but resolutely on one side. "I' faith! I like not sots and topers," he went on, as he filled his own glass to the brim, "and as worthy Warwickshire Will—Oh, no offence, young gentleman—out of date Master Shakspere may be, but mind you, he can frame as wise and witty a phrase when he pleases, as any of your Shadwells or Rochesters, or your long-winded Master Drydens either, and he says ''tis a shame for men to put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains.' But wine need be no man's enemy. It should rather be his trusty servant and helper. For wine, as another wise man hath it, is a good servant, though it be a tyrant master, just as fire—"
"Fire! Fire!" loudly echoed Lawrence, starting from the brown study into which he had fallen during his entertainer's disquisition.
"Why, bless the good fellow!" ejaculated the goldsmith under his breath, as he leant back in his well-cushioned chair, and tipping together the points of his ten fingers, contemplated Lawrence through his half-closed eyelids with no small curiosity. "'Tis but a cloud-brained lad after all; one would ha' guessed I'd flashed a musket-shot in his ear, to see him start."