Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/232

218 His eyes lit up with rapture. It was as though I had made oath I was a nobleman and removed his last doubt.

"Pommery Green—oh or Hideseek, my lord? "

I cursed silently. I am of an easy-going disposition, and in my most penurious student days, had to spend twenty-five per cent more on my modest lunch whenever the waiter said: "Stout or bitter, sir?" But the present alternative was far more terrible. I was on the point of saying I was a teetotaller, when I remembered that would shut off my nocturnal whisky-and-water, and condemn me to goody-goody beverages at meals. I remembered, too, that Jones intended the champagne as much for my friends as myself, and that lords are proverbially disassociated from temperance. Oh! it was horrible that this oleaginous snob should rob a poor man of his beer! Perhaps I could escape with claret. In my agitation I commenced lathering my chin and returned no answer at all. The voice of Jones came at last, charged with deeper respect, but inevitable as the knell of doom.

"Did you say Pommery Green—oh! my lord?"

"No!" I yelled defiantly.

"Thank you, my lord. Lord Porchester was very partial to our Hideseek—when he was here. We have an excellent year."

"I wish you had twelve months," I thought furiously. Then when the door closed upon him, I ground my razor savagely and muttered: "All right! I'll take it out of you in Dantidam."

I heard the bustle of my friends arriving to lunch, and I shaved myself hastily. Then slipping on my coat and dabbing a bit of sticking-plaster on my chin, I threw open the the door violently; for I was not going to let those two fellows off an exhibition of slang. They should have thought out