Hippias meditated anew.  “All the human race on one another’s shoulders.”  He chuckled at the sweeping sourness of the instance.

“Very good,” Adrian applauded, “or in default of that, some symbol of the thing, say; such as this of which I have here brought you a chip.”

Adrian displayed the quarter of the cake.

“This is the monument made portable—­eh?”

“Cake!” cried Hippias, retreating to his chair to dramatize his intense disgust.  “You’re right of them that eat it.  If I—­if I don’t mistake,” he peered at it, “the noxious composition bedizened in that way is what they call wedding-cake.  It’s arrant poison!  Who is it you want to kill?  What are you carrying such stuff about for?”

Adrian rang the bell for a knife.  “To present you with your due and proper portion.  You will have friends and relatives, and can’t be saved from them, not even by miracle.  It is a habit which exhibits, perhaps, the unconscious inherent cynicism of the human mind, for people who consider that they have reached the acme of mundane felicity, to distribute this token of esteem to their friends, with the object probably” (he took the knife from a waiter and went to the table to slice the cake) “of enabling those friends (these edifices require very delicate incision—­each particular currant and subtle condiment hangs to its neighbour—­a wedding-cake is evidently the most highly civilized of cakes, and partakes of the evils as well as the advantages of civilization!)—­I was saying, they send us these love-tokens, no doubt (we shall have to weigh out the crumbs, if each is to have his fair share) that we may the better estimate their state of bliss by passing some hours in purgatory.  This, as far as I can apportion it without weights and scales, is your share, my uncle!”

He pushed the corner of the table bearing the cake towards Hippias.

“Get away!” Hippias vehemently motioned, and started from his chair.  “I’ll have none of it, I tell you!  It’s death!  It’s fifty times worse than that beastly compound Christmas pudding!  What fool has been doing this, then?  Who dares send me cake?  Me!  It’s an insult.”

“You are not compelled to eat any before dinner,” said Adrian, pointing the corner of the table after him, “but your share you must take, and appear to consume.  One who has done so much to bring about the marriage cannot in conscience refuse his allotment of the fruits.  Maidens, I hear, first cook it under their pillows, and extract nuptial dreams therefrom—­said to be of a lighter class, taken that way.  It’s a capital cake, and, upon my honour, you have helped to make it—­you have indeed!  So here it is.”

The table again went at Hippias.  He ran nimbly round it, and flung himself on a sofa exhausted, crying:  “There!...  My appetite’s gone for to-day!”

“Then shall I tell Richard that you won’t touch a morsel of his cake?” said Adrian, leaning on his two hands over the table and looking at his uncle.