“I hear that he had a cold,” Vernon remarked.  “I hope the wine was good, sir.”

As when the foreman of a sentimental jury is commissioned to inform an awful Bench exact in perspicuous English, of a verdict that must of necessity be pronounced in favour of the hanging of the culprit, yet would fain attenuate the crime of a palpable villain by a recommendation to mercy, such foreman, standing in the attentive eye of a master of grammatical construction, and feeling the weight of at least three sentences on his brain, together with a prospect of Judicial interrogation for the discovery of his precise meaning, is oppressed, himself is put on trial, in turn, and he hesitates, he recapitulates, the fear of involution leads him to be involved; as far as a man so posted may, he on his own behalf appeals for mercy; entreats that his indistinct statement of preposterous reasons may be taken for understood, and would gladly, were permission to do it credible, throw in an imploring word that he may sink back among the crowd without for the one imperishable moment publicly swinging in his lordship’s estimation:—­much so, moved by chivalry toward a lady, courtesy to the recollection of a hostess, and particularly by the knowledge that his hearer would expect with a certain frigid rigour charity of him, Dr. Middleton paused, spoke and paused:  he stammered.  Ladies, he said, were famous poisoners in the Middle Ages.  His opinion was, that we had a class of manufacturing wine merchants on the watch for widows in this country.  But he was bound to state the fact of his waking at his usual hour to the minute unassailed by headache.  On the other hand, this was a condition of blessedness unanticipated when he went to bed.  Mr. Whitford, however, was not to think that he entertained rancour toward the wine.  It was no doubt dispensed with the honourable intention of cheering.  In point of flavour execrable, judging by results it was innocuous.

“The test of it shall be the effect of it upon Professor Crooklyn, and his appearance in the forenoon according to promise,” Dr. Middleton came to an end with his perturbed balancings.  “If I hear more of the eight or twelve winds discharged at once upon a railway platform, and the young lady who dries herself of a drenching by drinking brandy and water with a gentleman at a railway inn, I shall solicit your sanction to my condemnation of the wine as anti-Bacchic and a counterfeit presentment.  Do not misjudge me.  Our hostess is not responsible.  But widows should marry.”

“You must contrive to stop the Professor, sir, if he should attack his hostess in that manner,” said Vernon.

“Widows should marry!” Dr. Middleton repeated.

He murmured of objecting to be at the discretion of a butler; unless, he was careful to add, the aforesaid functionary could boast of an University education; and even then, said he, it requires a line of ancestry to train a man’s taste.