Page:Pleased to Meet You (1927).pdf/17

 commissioner was here to arrange our finances he would have nothing but champagne. However I worked off a cheap sparkling Chablis on him and he did not know the difference."

"Considering the habits of our late lamented Grand Duke," said the major domo, looking over the list, "your bins seem to be very fairly stocked."

"Plenty good enough, anyhow, for a republican administration. What a calamity!"

"It is a time of crisis," said Romsteck gravely. "There must be no nonsense about retrenchment or we shall all find ourselves retrenched out of existence. We are lucky to be here at all."

"Yes," cried Karl, "and what did it? If I had not had presence of mind to serve the 1865 cognac the evening the protocol was signed, we should have been annexed to Italy. I saw the hard hearts of those premiers begin to soften after the third glass."

"I hope you have plenty of it left," said Frau Innsbruck bitterly. "There may be need of it."