“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.”

“He was heard to say to Mr. Smith,” Crickledon pursued, and she lowered her voice, “he was heard to say, it was when they were quarreling over that chiwal, and they went at one another pretty hard before Mr. Smith beat him and he sold Mr. Smith that meadow; he was heard to say, there was worse than transportation for Mr. Smith if he but lifted his finger.  They Tinmans have awful tempers.  His old mother died malignant, though she was a saving woman, and never owed a penny to a Christian a hour longer than it took to pay the money.  And old Tinman’s just such another.”

“Transportation!” Herbert ejaculated, “that’s sheer nonsense, Crickledon.  I’m sure your husband would tell you so.”

“It was my husband brought me the words,” Mrs. Crickledon rejoined with some triumph.  “He did tell me, I own, to keep it shut:  but my speaking to you, a friend of Mr. Smith’s, won’t do no harm.  He heard them under the battery, over that chiwal glass:  ‘And you shall pay,’ says Mr. Smith, and ‘I sha’n’t,’ says old Tinman.  Mr. Smith said he would have it if he had to squeeze a deathbed confession from a sinner.  Then old Tinman fires out, ‘You!’ he says, ‘you’ and he stammered.  ‘Mr. Smith,’ my husband said and you never saw a man so shocked as my husband at being obliged to hear them at one another Mr. Smith used the word damn.  ‘You may laugh, sir.’”