蒼涼的苦澀

“Yes; Mr. Firmin’s dinners were very handsome — and a pretty end came of the handsome dinners!” sighed Mrs. Twysden.“That’s not the question; I am only speaking about the fellow’s meat and drink, and they were both good. And it’s my opinion, that fellow will have a good dinner wherever he goes.”


I had the fortune to be present at one of these feasts, which Lord Ringwood attended, and at which I met Philip’s trustee, General Baynes, who had just arrived from India. I remember now the smallest details of the little dinner, — the brightness of the old plate, on which the doctor prided himself, and the quiet comfort, not to say splendour, of the entertainment. The general seemed to take a great liking to Philip, whose grandfather had been his special friend and comrade in arms. He thought he saw something of Philip Ringwood in Philip Firmin’s face Neo skin lab .

“Ah, indeed!” growls Lord Ringwood.“You ain’t a bit like him,” says the downright general. “Never saw a handsomer or more openlooking fellow than Philip Ringwood.”“Oh! I daresay I looked pretty open myself forty years ago,” said my lord; “now I’m shut, I suppose. I don’t see the least likeness in this young man to my brother.”“That is some sherry as old as the century,” whispers the host; “it is the same the Prince Regent liked so at a Mansion House dinner, five-and-twenty years ago.”“Never knew anything about wine; was always tippling liqueurs and punch. What do you give for this sherry, doctor Exchange Opportunities?”

The doctor sighed, and looked up to the chandelier. “Drink it while it lasts, my good lord; but don’t ask me the price. The fact is, I don’t like to say what I gave for it.”“You need not stint yourself in the price of sherry, doctor,” cries the general gaily; “you have but one son, and he has a fortune of his own, as I happen to know. You haven’t dipped it, master Philip?”“I fear, sir, I may have sometimes, in the last three years; but my father has helped me.”

“Exceeded nine hundred a-year! Upon my word! When I was a sub, my friends gave me fifty pounds a year, and I never was a shilling in debt! What are men coming to now?”“If doctors drink Prince Regent’s sherry at ten guineas a dozen, what can you expect of their sons, General Baynes?” grumbles my lord.“My father gives you his best, my lord,” says Philip gaily; “if you know of any better, he will get it for you. Si non, his utere mecum! Please to pass me that decanter, Pen!”I thought the old lord did not seem ill pleased at the young man’s freedom; and now, as I recal it, think I can remember, that a peculiar silence and anxiety seemed to weigh upon our host — upon him whose face was commonly so anxious and sad.

The famous sherry, which had made many voyages to Indian climes before it acquired its exquisite flavour, had travelled some three or four times round the doctor’s polished table, when Brice, his man, entered with a letter on his silver tray. Perhaps Philip’s eyes and mine exchanged glances in which ever so small a scintilla of mischief might sparkle. The doctor often had letters when he was entertaining his friends; and his patients had a knack of falling ill at awkward times.“Gracious heavens!” cries the doctor, when he read the despatch — it was a telegraphic message. “The poor Grand Duke!”“What Grand Duke?” asks the surly lord of Ringwood.