Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/127

 “man,” it may well be pardoned him, so that he sees you suffer no worse a fate. He should thieve in the grand style, and never condescend to take the heart out of a flask and fill the eviscerated shell with water; he should know that a bottle is of the aristocracy, and should ever treat it like a gentleman. What blow so hard to bear as the knowledge, years after you have sacked your incomparable butler for intemperance, that he had drunk three and a half dozen of your ’47 port, and filled the bottles with the pure lymph in which you condescend to wash, but never debase yourself by drinking?

For ourselves, we scorn to set a watch upon our Lord High Keeper of the Vintages: we would as soon suspect one of Her Majesty’s Judges of taking a bribe as imagine