decline mentioning it—and, if you ask his
friend, that friend will wag his head and
decline mentioning it also. Sometimes he has
been at an out-of-the-way country inn; has
found the sherry not drinkable; has asked
if there is no other wine in the house; has
been informed that there is some "sourish
foreign stuff that nobody ever drinks;" has
called for a bottle of it; has found it
Burgundy, such as all France cannot now
produce; has cunningly kept his own counsel
with the widowed landlady, and has bought
the whole stock for "an old song."
Sometimes he knows the proprietor of a famous
tavern in London; and he recommends his
one or two particular friends, the next time
they are passing that way, to go in and dine,
and give his compliments to the landlord, and
ask for a bottle of the brown sherry, with the
light blue—as distinguished from the dark-
blue—seal. Thousands of people dine there
every year, and think they have got the
famous sherry when they get the dark-blue
seal; but—and, by no means, let it go any
farther—the real wine, the famous wine, is
the light blue seal; and nobody in England
knows it but the landlord and his friends.
In all these wine-conversations, whatever
variety there may be in the various experiences
related, one of two great first principles
is invariably assumed by each speaker in
succession. Either he knows more about it than
any one else—or he has got better wine of
his own even than the excellent wine he is
now drinking. Men can get together,
sometimes, without talking of women, without
talking of horses, without talking of politics;
but they cannot assemble to eat a meal
together without talking of wine; and they
cannot talk of wine without assuming to each
one of themselves an absolute infallibility in
connection with that single subject, which
they would shrink from asserting in relation
to any other topic under the sun.

How long the inevitable wine-talk lasted,
on the particular social occasion of which I
am now writing, is more than I can undertake
to say. I had heard so many other
conversations of the same sort, at so many other
tables, that my attention wandered away,
wearily; and I began to forget all about the
dull little dinner party, and the badly-
assorted company of guests of whom I formed
one. How long I remained in this not over-
courteous condition of mental oblivion, is
more than I can tell. But when my attention
was recalled, in due course of time, to
the little world around me, I found that the
good wine had begun to do its good office.
The stream of talk, on either side of the host's
chair, was beginning to flow cheerfully and
continuously; the wine-conversation had worn
itself out; and one of the elder guests—Mr.
Wendell—was occupied in telling the other
elder guest—Mr. Trowbridge—of a small
fraud which had been lately committed on him
by a clerk in his employment. The first part of
the story I missed altogether. The last part,
which alone caught my attention, followed
the career of the clerk to the dock of the Old
Bailey.

"So, as I was telling you," continued Mr.
Wendell, "I made up my mind to prosecute,
and I did prosecute. Thoughtless people
blamed me for sending the young man to
prison, and said I might just as well have
forgiven him, seeing that the trifling sum of money
I had lost by his breach of trust was barely
as much as ten pounds. Of course, personally
speaking, I would much rather not have gone
into court; but I considered that my duty to
society in general, and to my brother-
merchants in particular, absolutely compelled me
to prosecute for the sake of example. I acted
on that principle, and I don't regret that I
did so. The circumstances under which the
man robbed me were particularly disgraceful.
He was a hardened reprobate, sir, if ever
there was one yet; and I believe, in my
conscience, that he wanted nothing but the
opportunity, to be as great a villain as
Fauntleroy himself."

At the moment when Mr. Wendell
personified his idea of consummate villany by
quoting the example of Fauntleroy, I saw
the other middle-aged gentleman—Mr.
Trowbridge—colour up on a sudden, and begin to
fidget in his chair.

"The next time you want to produce an.
instance of a villain, sir," said Mr.
Trowbridge, " I wish you could contrive to quote
some other example than Fauntleroy."

Mr. Wendell, naturally enough, looked
excessively astonished when he heard these
words; which were very firmly and, at the
same time, very politely addressed to him.

"May I inquire why you object to my
example? " he asked.

"I object to it, sir," said Mr. Trowbridge,
"because it makes me very uncomfortable to.
hear Fauntleroy called a villain."

"Good heavens above!" exclaimed Mr.
Wendell, utterly bewildered. "Uncomfortable!
—you, a mercantile man like myself—
you, whose character stands so high
everywhere—you, uncomfortable, when you hear
a man who was hanged for forgery called a
villain! In the name of wonder—why?"

"Because," answered Mr. Trowbridge, with
perfect composure, " Fauntleroy was a friend
of mine."

"Excuse me, my dear sir," retorted Mr.
Wendell, in as polished a tone of sarcasm as
he could command—"but of all the friends
whom you have made in the course of your
useful and honourable career, I should have
thought the friend you have just mentioned
would have been the very last to whom you
were likely to refer, in respectable society—
at least, by name."

"Fauntleroy committed an unpardonable
crime, and died a disgraceful death," said Mr.
Trowbridge. "But, for all that, Fauntleroy
was a friend of mine; and in that character