"Don't be crusty with a fellow," replied the goblin. "I merely looked in to wish you the compliments of the season. Talking of crust, by the way, what sort of a tap is it you're drinking?" So saying, he took up a flask of the baron's very best and poured out about half a glass. Having held the glass first on one side and then on the other, winked at it twice, sniffed it, and gone through the remainder of the pantomime in which connoisseurs indulge, he drank it with great deliberation, and smacked his lips scientifically. "Hum! Johannisberg! and not so very bad—for you. But I tell you what it is, baron, you'll have to bring out better stuff than this when I put my legs on your mahogany."
"Well, you are a cool fish," said the baron. "However, you're rather a joke, so, now you're here, we may as well enjoy ourselves. Smoke?"
"Not anything you're likely to offer me!"
"Confound your impudence!" roared the baron, with a horribly complicated oath. "That tobacco is as good as any in all Rhineland."
"That's a nasty cough you've got, baron. Don't excite yourself, my dear boy; I dare say you speak according to your lights. I don't mean Vesuvians, you know, but your opportunities for knowing anything about it. Try a weed out of my case, and I expect you'll alter your opinion."
The baron took the proffered case and selected a cigar. Not a word was spoken till it was half consumed, when the baron took it, for the first time, from his lips, and said, gently, with the air of a man communicating an important discovery in the strictest confidence, "Das ist gut!"
"Thought you'd say so," said the visitor. "And now, as you like the cigar, I should like you to try a thimbleful of what I call wine. I must warn you, though, that it is rather potent, and may produce effects you are not accustomed to."
"Bother that, if it is as good as the weed," said the baron; "I haven't taken my usual quantity by four bottles yet."
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you, that's all. I don't think you'll find it unpleasant, though it is rather strong when you're not accustomed to it." So saying, the goblin produced from some mysterious pocket a black, big-bellied bottle, crusted, apparently, with the dust of ages.