That settled it. J. B. felt as if those respectful eyes had bored through into his thoughts.
"No," he said shortly; and followed Teddy into his host's presence.
Doctor Vardaman's guests sat down some ten or twelve strong, the doctor at the head of his table, in a dress-coat the fashion of which antedated even Huddesley's, with his iron-grey hair brushed forward in a tuft over each ear; with a black stock such as he had worn since the year '40; his eyeglass on a black ribbon aslant across his shirt-front like an order; and a pair of Labrador-stone buttons in his cuffs, dark watery-green with a crumb of fire eerily visible in the depths of them. These cuff-buttons signalised the dinner as a gala-occasion; the doctor marked the day with a Labrador-stone. He only wore them when the event was of enough importance to justify such a display—a queer sentimental tribute to certain queer sentimental recollections. They had been given him who knows how long ago, and by whom? So do we all in secret offer some absurd and pathetic oblation before the shrines of the past. I dare say when the doctor opened the top drawer of his high-shouldered mahogany bureau and took his Labrador-stone buttons out of their dingy little green morocco case, for one moment the breath of a vanished spring saluted him, and the roses still bloomed by the calm Bendemeer. Thus did the old gentleman preside, invested with the kind dignity of his age and character, and of his noble and beautiful profession; and I have no doubt his ancient bachelor heart warmed a good deal at this exercise of hospitality, at the brave sight of the double row of young men's faces before him, and the deep and pleasant sound of their laughter. The other end of the table was held by Mr. J. Breckinridge Taylor, as the journals persisted in reporting him; and Huddesley brought in the soup. The doctor served it himself from a tub of a tureen, with a silver ladle not less than a yard long, both of which had graced the tables of his mother and grandmother—there were giants in those days!—as had all the other furnishings of this memorable dinner.
"There was one of those three-story-high cut-glass things, with tiers of cups on circular platforms—I don't know what you call 'em—filled with shaky jelly stuff and cream all foamy on top of it," one more than commonly observant young man told me afterwards. "That was in the middle of the table. And two silver castors with red Bohemian glass bottles full of vinegar and oil and things like that, you know, on each side of it; you could whirl 'em around, and pick out the bottle you wanted. And there were shallow glass dishes with jelly and two tall ones like big champagne-glasses, with kind of thick sticky preserves—they had lids, the tall ones. After the soup, everything came on at once, game, prairie-chicken, at the doctor's end, and just plain John Smith chicken roasted, about the middle, and boiled leg of mutton with this white sauce that has hard-boiled egg and little green things like pickled shoe-buttons"—he meant capers—"all through it, for J. B. to carve, and oysters and a ham, and four or five vegetables all over the table. There were the funniest old steel knives with ivory handles, and thin old silver forks and spoons with the doctor's crest, and a motto, 'Foy tiendrai,' whatever that may mean, on the backs. Everybody had half-a-dozen wine-glasses; and to begin with there were four decanters of sherry, one at each corner of the table, and when we'd finished those—well, you had to have a lot of liquor to get through a dinner like that, you know—Huddesley brought out three other kinds."
J. B. conscientiously carving the joint at his end of the table, viewed the shrinkage in the decanters with considerable uneasiness. There was nothing prim or kill-joy about J. B. He had no idea of affecting the virtue that denies to another man his cakes and ale. But he was a hard-headed young fellow, not given to self-indulgence of any kind; and although in the State of his birth and earlier years over-drinking was anything but uncommon, he confessed to a sort of contemptuous impatience with the man who did not know when he had enough. It seemed as if one or two of the present company had nearly reached that desirable condition; and still Huddesley travelled about the table, impartial as Fate herself, leaving no glass unfilled; or even half-full. J. B. could see Doctor Vardaman's face but imperfectly around the erection of custard-cups in the centre, but he thought an anxiety equal to his own appeared and vanished there by turns. Once or twice the old gentleman seemed on the edge of signalling Huddesley to hold his hand, but some feeling rooted, most probably in his old-fashioned notions of hospitality, must have restrained him.
"Tell you what," said J. B.'s next neighbour confidentially, "Johns is about as full as I like to see him; it don't take much, you know. He's just good and jolly now, but if he gets much more——" He shook his head dubiously. "Say, have you heard anything more about the colonel? I saw Gwynne Peters on the street to-day——"
"Hock or madeira, sir?" said Huddesley in J. B.'s ear. "Hock, sir? Yes, sir."
"It seems the Pallinders—I don't care, hock, I guess. What's the difference anyhow? I don't know one of these wines from the other."
"What about the Pallinders now?" asked J. B.
At that very moment, the length of the table away, Archie Lewis was saying, "Suppose you've heard that about Gwynne Peters, Doctor?"