Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/92



"You have not shaken it?" asked my father.

"Upon my word; no, sir," answered Dawson earnestly. The poor man had a wife and family.

My father gripped the bottle delicately with the napkin, and examined the point of the corkscrew.

"It would be a great pity," he observed, gravely, "if anything happened to the cork."

Nothing happened to the cork. With infinite delicacy my father persuaded it to leave the neck of the bottle. Sir Matthew was ready with decanter, funnel, and muslin.

"We must take care of the crust," remarked my father, and we all nodded solemnly.

My father cast his eyes up to Uncle John's portrait for an instant, much as if he were asking the old gentleman's benediction, and gently inclined the bottle toward the muslin-covered mouth of the funnel.

"If only my poor uncle could be here," he sighed. Uncle John had been very fond of port.

"I should be delighted to meet him!" cried Sir Matthew, in genuine friendliness.

The vicar took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replaced them. My father tilted the bottle a little more toward the funnel. Then he stopped suddenly, and a strange, puzzled look appeared on his face. He looked at Sir Matthew, and Sir Matthew looked at him; and we all looked at the bottle.

"Does old port wine generally make that noise?" asked Sylvia.

For a most mysterious sound had proceeded from the inside of the bottle, as my father carefully inclined it toward the funnel. It sounded as if—but it was absurd to suppose that a handful of marbles could have found their way into a bottle of old port.

"The crust" began the vicar, cheerfully.

"It's not the crust," said my father, decisively.

"Let us see what it is," suggested Sir Matthew, very urbanely.

"I've done nothing to the bottle, sir," cried Dawson.

My father cleared his throat, and gave the bottle a further inclination toward the funnel. A little wine trickled out and found its way through the muslin. My father smelt the muslin anxiously, but seemed to gain no enlightenment. He poured on under the engrossed gaze of the whole party. The marbles, or what they were, thumped in the bottle; and with a little jump something sprang out into the muslin. Sir Matthew stretched out a hand. My father waved him away.

"We will go on to the end," said he solemnly, and he took it up, the object that had fallen into the muslin, between his