She was now successful, and a lump of ginger emerged on the end of the button-hook. While she went to wipe the button-hook, Rachel bit the ginger and at once cried, “I must spit it out!”
“Are you sure you have really tasted it?” Miss Allan demanded.
For answer Rachel threw it out of the window.
“An experience anyhow,” said Miss Allan calmly. “Let me see—I have nothing else to offer you, unless you would like to taste this.” A small cupboard hung above her bed, and she took out of it a slim elegant jar filled with a bright green fluid.
“Crême de Menthe,” she said. “Liqueur, you know. It looks as if I drank, doesn’t it? As a matter of fact it goes to prove what an exceptionally abstemious person I am. I’ve had that jar for six-and-twenty years,” she added, looking at it with pride, as she tipped it over, and from the height of the liquid it could be seen that the bottle was still untouched.
“Twenty-six years?” Rachel exclaimed.
Miss Allan was gratified, for she had meant Rachel to be surprised.
“When I went to Dresden six-and-twenty years ago,” she said, “a certain friend of mine announced her intention of making me a present. She thought that in the event of shipwreck or accident a stimulant might be useful. However, as I had no occasion for it, I gave it back on my return. On the eve of any foreign journey the same bottle always makes its appearance, with the same note; on my return in safety it is always handed back. I consider it a kind of charm against accidents. Though I was once detained twenty-four hours by an accident to the train in front of me, I have never met with any accident myself. Yes,” she continued, now addressing the bottle, “we have seen many climes and cupboards together, have we not? I intend one of these days to have a silver label made with an inscription. It is a gentleman, as you may observe, and his name is Oliver. . . . I do not think I could forgive you, Miss Vinrace, if you broke my Oliver,” she said, firmly taking the bottle out of Rachel’s hands and replacing it in the cupboard.
Rachel was swinging the bottle by the neck. She was interested by Miss Allan to the point of forgetting the bottle.
“Well,” she exclaimed, “I do think that odd; to have had a friend for twenty-six years, and a bottle, and—to have made all those journeys.”