Pooney, who never would have parted with her in life; and every day of that man’s life he dirtied thirteen plates at dinner, nor more, nor less, but exactly that number, as if he believed there was luck in it.  And as Crickledon said, it was odd.  But it was always a pleasure to cook for him.  Mrs. Crickledon could not abide cooking for a mean eater.  And when Crickledon said he had never seen an acorn, he might have seen one had he looked about him in the great park, under the oaks, on the day when he came to be married.

“Then it’s a standing compliment to you, Mrs. Crickledon, that he did not,” said Herbert.

He remarked with the sententiousness of enforced philosophy, that no wine was better than bad wine.

Mrs. Crickledon spoke of a bottle left by her summer lodgers, who had indeed left two, calling the wine invalid’s wine; and she and her husband had opened one on the anniversary of their marriage day in October.  It had the taste of doctor’s shop, they both agreed; and as no friend of theirs could be tempted beyond a sip, they were advised, because it was called a tonic, to mix it with the pig-wash, so that it should not be entirely lost, but benefit the constitution of the pig.  Herbert sipped at the remaining bottle, and finding himself in the superior society of an old Manzanilla, refilled his glass.

“Nothing I knows of proves the difference between gentlefolks and poor persons as tastes in wine,” said Mrs. Crickledon, admiring him as she brought in a dish of cutlets,—­with Sir Alfred Pooney’s favourite sauce Soubise, wherein rightly onion should be delicate as the idea of love in maidens’ thoughts, albeit constituting the element of flavour.  Something of such a dictum Sir Alfred Pooney had imparted to his cook, and she repeated it with the fresh elegance of, such sweet sayings when transfused through the native mind: 

“He said, I like as it was what you would call a young gal’s blush at a kiss round a corner.”

The epicurean baronet had the habit of talking in that way.

Herbert drank to his memory.  He was well-filled; he had no work to do, and he was exuberant in spirits, as Mrs. Crickledon knew her countrymen should and would be under those conditions.  And suddenly he drew his hand across a forehead so wrinkled and dark, that Mrs. Crickledon exclaimed, “Heart or stomach?”

“Oh, no,” said he.  “I’m sound enough in both, I hope.”

That old Tinman’s up to one of his games,” she observed.

“Do you think so?”

“He’s circumventing Miss Annette Smith.”

“Pooh!  Crickledon.  A man of his age can’t be seriously thinking of proposing for a young lady.”

He’s a well-kept man.  He’s never racketed.  He had n’t the rackets in him.  And she may n’t care for him.  But we hear things drop.”

“What things have you heard drop, Crickledon?  In a profound silence you may hear pins; in a hubbub you may hear cannon-balls.  But I never believe in eavesdropping gossip.”