“It’s not that, my dear boy,” said the uncle, shaking him by the hand. “I’ll tell you all about it afterwards.”
“All right,” responded the nephew. “I stand treat, Uncle Joseph; what will you have?”
“In that case,” replied the old gentleman, “I’ll take another sandwich. I daresay I surprise you,” he went on, “with my presence in a public-house; but the fact is, I act on a sound but little-known principle of my own—”
“O, it’s better known than you suppose,” said Michael sipping his brandy and soda. “I always act on it myself when I want a drink.”
The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate Michael, laughed a cheerless laugh. “You have such a flow of spirits,” said he, “I am sure I often find it quite amusing. But regarding this principle of which I was about to speak. It is that of accommodating one’s-self to the manners of any land (however humble) in which our lot may be cast. Now, in France, for instance, every one goes to a café for his meals; in America, to what is called a ’two-bit house’; in England the people resort to such an institution as the present for refreshment. With sandwiches, tea, and an occasional glass of bitter beer, a man can live luxuriously in London for fourteen pounds twelve shillings per annum.”
“Yes, I know,” returned Michael, “but that’s not including clothes, washing, or boots. The whole thing, with cigars and occasional sprees, costs me over seven hundred a year.”
But this was Michael’s last interruption. He listened in good-humoured silence to the remainder of his uncle’s lecture, which speedily branched to political reform, thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an illustrative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again to the best manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf-and-dumb; and with that, the sandwich being then no more, explicuit valde feliciter. A moment later the pair issued forth on the King’s Road.
“Michael,” said his uncle, “the reason that I am here is because I cannot endure those nephews of mine. I find them intolerable.”