getting tipsy. He held in his hand, in the fashion of an antique goblet,
a punch-bowl filled with wine, for he despised the ordinary glasses,
because of their small size.

"Meditating," echoed Rose-Pompon, "Ninny Moulin is meditating. Be
attentive!"

"He is meditating; he must be ill then!"

"What is he meditating? an illegal dance?"

"A forbidden Anacreontic attitude?"

"Yes, I am meditating," returned Dumoulin, gravely; "I am meditating upon
wine, generally and in particular--wine, of which the immortal
Bossuet"--Dumoulin had the very bad habit of quoting Bossuet when he was
drunk--"of which the immortal Bossuet says (and he was a judge of good
liquor): 'In wine is courage, strength joy, and spiritual fervor'--when
one has any brains," added Ninny Moulin, by way of parenthesis.

"Oh, my! how I adore your Bossuet!" said Rose-Pompon.

"As for my particular meditation, it concerns the question, whether the
wine at the marriage of Cana was red or white. Sometimes I incline to one
side, sometimes to the other--and sometimes to both at once."

"That is going to the bottom of the question," said Sleepinbuff.

"And, above all, to the bottom of the bottles," added the Bacchanal
Queen.