unexceptionable neckcloth.

As I took my place at the table, my father looked up cheerily and gave
me a pleased nod of recognition.

Our meal passed off very silently. It was my father's maxim that no man
could do more than one thing well at a time--especially at table; so we
had contracted a habit which to strangers would have seemed even more
unsociable than it really was, and gave to all our meals an air more
penitential than convivial. But this day was, in reality, a festive
occasion, and my father was disposed to be more than usually agreeable.
When the cloth was removed, he flung the cellar-key at my head, and
exclaimed, in a burst of unexampled good-humor:--

"Basil, you dog, fetch up a bottle of the particular port!"

Now it is one of my theories that a man's after-dinner talk takes much
of its weight, color, and variety from the quality of his wines. A
generous vintage brings out generous sentiments. Good fellowship,
hospitality, liberal politics, and the milk of human kindness, may be
uncorked simultaneously with a bottle of old Madeira; while a pint of
thin Sauterne is productive only of envy, hatred, malice, and all
uncharitableness. We grow sententious on Burgundy--logical on
Bordeaux--sentimental on Cyprus--maudlin on Lagrima Christi--and witty
on Champagne.

Port was my father's favorite wine. It warmed his heart, cooled his
temper, and made him not only conversational, but expansive. Leaning
back complacently in his easy-chair, with the glass upheld between his
eye and the window, he discoursed to me of my journey, of my prospects