“But, Sir John,” said his wife, “Dr. Keif is no infant. He will speak if he wants anything.”
“Nonsense, he forgets it. Dr. Keif, your plate, if you please.”
But the learned Doctor is deaf to Sir John’s warning voice. He is engaged in an interesting conversation with his neighbour, M. Gueronnay, from Paris.
M. Gueronnay is an elderly gentleman, with a youthful head of hair, red cheeks, and preposterously black whiskers. He is grave of aspect; but there is in his small black eyes an inexhaustible fund of good nature and conceit. For the last twenty years he has every season paid a visit of a week or two to Sir John, and each time he finds London gloomier and more unbearable. In fact, nothing but his affection for his old friends could induce him to leave the paradise of Paris for a week’s punishment in the fog and smoke of the Thames. But, however great his disgust may be, he is amiable enough to conquer it; he eats and drinks as an Englishman, laughs and jokes with the ladies all day long, and sheds a few tears at leave-taking. To complete the picture, we ought to add, that M. Gueronnay makes a vow every year to return as a married man, and to bring his wife with him.
Heaven knows what can have happened between him and Dr. Keif, while the rest of the family were eating their roast beef; but everybody is struck with the fact that they talk violently, and both at the same time, too.
“Dr. Keif, your plate!” says Sir John.
“He does not hear you,” responded Bella. “I dare say he is again talking politics.”
“Order!” cries Sir John, now for the third time. “Dr. Keif, M. Gueronnay, another piece of pudding.”
But the two arch-foreigners murmur an excuse, and turn again to one another.
“Yes, surely,” says Dr. Keif, “the sun rises in the West.”