To hear the out-door
clerks sneezing, wheezing, and beating their feet on the gravel was
a zest far surpassing Doctor Kitchener's. To bid, with a shiver,
the unfortunate flying waiter shut the door before he had opened
it, was a condiment of a profounder flavour than Harvey. And here
let it be noticed, parenthetically, that the leg of this young man,
in its application to the door, evinced the finest sense of touch:
always preceding himself and tray (with something of an angling air
about it), by some seconds: and always lingering after he and the
tray had disappeared, like Macbeth's leg when accompanying him off
the stage with reluctance to the assassination of Duncan.
The host had gone below to the cellar, and had brought up bottles
of ruby, straw-coloured, and golden drinks, which had ripened long
ago in lands where no fogs are, and had since lain slumbering in
the shade. Sparkling and tingling after so long a nap, they pushed
at their corks to help the corkscrew (like prisoners helping
rioters to force their gates), and danced out gaily. If P. J. T.
in seventeen-forty-seven, or in any other year of his period, drank
such wines - then, for a certainty, P. J. T. was Pretty Jolly Too.
Externally, Mr. Grewgious showed no signs of being mellowed by
these glowing vintages. Instead of his drinking them, they might
have been poured over him in his high-dried snuff form, and run to
waste, for any lights and shades they caused to flicker over his
face.
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