All the evils come from this.  Macbeth could not sleep.  It was the supper, not the murder.  His wife talked and walked.  It was the supper again.  Milton had a bad digestion because he is always so cross; and your Carlyle must have the worst digestion in the world, because he never says any good of anything.  Ah, to digest is to be happy!  Believe me, my friends, there is no other way not to be turned out of paradise by a fiery, two-handed turning sword.”

“It is true,” said Schmoff; “yes, it is true.”

“I believe you,” said Doodles.  “And how well the count describes it, don’t he, Mr. Clavering?  I never looked at it in that light; but, after all, digestion is everything.  What is a horse worth, if he won’t feed?”

“I never thought much about it,” said Harry.

“That is very good,” said the great preacher.  “Not to think about it ever is the best thing in the world.  You will be made to think about it if there be necessity.  A friend of mine told, me he did not know whether he had a digestion.  My friend, I said, you are like the husbandmen; you do not know your own blessings.  A bit more steak, Mr. Clavering; see, it has come up hot, just to prove that you have the blessing.”

There was a pause in the conversation for a minute or two, during which Schmoff and Doodles were very busy giving the required proof; and the count was leaning back in his chair with a smile of conscious wisdom on his face, looking as though he were in deep consideration of the subject on which he had just spoken with so much eloquence.  Harry did not interrupt the silence, as, foolishly, he was allowing his mind to carry itself away from the scene of enjoyment that was present, and trouble itself with the coming battle which he would be obliged to fight with the count.  Schmoff was the first to speak.  “When I was eating a horse at Hamboro’—­” he began.

“Schmoff,” said the count, “if we allow you to get behind the ramparts of that besieged city, we shall have to eat that horse for the rest of the evening.  Captain Boodle, if you will believe me, I eat that horse once for two hours.  Ah, here is the port wine.  Now, Mr. Clavering, this is the wine for cheese—­’34.  No man should drink above two glasses of ’34. if you want port after that, then have ’20.”

Schmoff had certainly been hardly treated.  He had scarcely spoken a word during dinner, and should, I think, have been allowed to say something of the flavor of the horse.  It did not, however, appear from his countenance that he had felt, or that he resented the interference; though he did not make any further attempt to enliven the conversation.

They did not sit long over their wine, and the count, in spite of what he had said about the claret, did not drink any.  “Captain Boodle,” he said, “you must respect my weakness as well as my strength.  I know what I can do, and what I cannot.  If I were a real hero, like you English—­which means, if I had an ostrich in my inside—­I would drink till twelve every night, and eat broiled bones till six every morning.  But alas! the ostrich has not been given to me.  As a common man I am pretty well, but I have no heroic capacities.  We will have a little chasse, and then we will smoke.”