Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/164

 edge. Willys, whom I had met once or twice before, nipped my arm, smacked his lips, and murmured with a communicative flicker in his eyes that I must be sure to see His Excellency's library before I left. As we moved toward the dining-room, Oliver's quick fire continued: "Did you get my telegram? Get the point about Bacchus? I'm feeling the pulse of the country on this prohibition business. Willys here has convictions, I find—just as many convictions as you have, but different. I got you two together in the hope of hearing you beat each other's brains out. I hope you'll do it in good style. Give him the Mid-Western gospel. I'll hold the coats. I've arranged the proper setting. But be human, Professor! Be human—just for to-night!"

It is not my intention to describe the dinner in detail. The excellence of a dinner à quatre, for any but a quartet of gourmands, is merely to provide a soft-footed ministration of successive felicities to the appetitive nature while the higher faculties, stimulated by the æsthetic accessories of the feast, nimbly engage in the discourse of reason. Of the material details, my memory is as indistinct as an impressionist poet's. I recall only the tall silver of candlesticks on an immacu-