“I only say it’s fishy,” returned Michael, “that is, pertaining to the finny tribe.”
“Do you mean to insinuate anything?” cried Morris stormily, trying the high hand.
“Insinuate?” repeated Michael. “O, don’t let’s begin to use awkward expressions! Let us drown our differences in a bottle, like two affable kinsmen. The Two Affable Kinsmen, sometimes attributed to Shakespeare,” he added.
Morris’s mind was labouring like a mill. “Does he suspect? or is this chance and stuff? Should I soap, or should I bully? Soap,” he concluded. “It gains time. Well,” said he aloud, and with rather a painful affectation of heartiness, “it’s long since we have had an evening together, Michael; and though my habits (as you know) are very temperate, I may as well make an exception. Excuse me one moment till I fetch a bottle of whisky from the cellar.”
“No whisky for me,” said Michael; “a little of the old still champagne or nothing.”
For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine was very valuable: the next he had quitted the room without a word. His quick mind had perceived his advantage; in thus dunning him for the cream of the cellar, Michael was playing into his hand. “One bottle?” he thought. “By George, I’ll give him two! this is no moment for economy; and once the beast is drunk, it’s strange if I don’t wring his secret out of him.”
With two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses were produced, and Morris filled them with hospitable grace.
“I drink to you, cousin!” he cried gaily. “Don’t spare the wine-cup in my house.”
Michael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the table; filled it again, and returned to his chair, carrying the bottle along with him.
“The spoils of war!” he said apologetically. “The weakest goes to the wall. Science, Morris, science.” Morris could think of no reply, and for an appreciable interval silence reigned. But two glasses of the still champagne produced a rapid change in Michael.