'Something of that, I suppose.' And so saying, Mr. Radnor entered the
shop of his quest, to be complimented by the shopkeeper, while the
attendants climbed the ladder to upper stages for white-waistcoat boxes,
on his being; the first bird of the season; which it pleased him to hear;
for the smallest of our gratifications in life could give a happy tone to
this brightly-constituted gentleman.




CHAPTER III

OLD VEUVE

They were known at the house of the turtle and the attractive Old Veuve:
a champagne of a sobered sweetness, of a great year, a great age,
counting up to the extremer maturity attained by wines of stilly depths;
and their worthy comrade, despite the wanton sparkles, for the promoting
of the state of reverential wonderment in rapture, which an ancient wine
will lead to, well you wot. The silly girly sugary crudity his given way
to womanly suavity, matronly composure, with yet the sparkles; they
ascend; but hue and flavour tell of a soul that has come to a lodgement
there. It conducts the youthful man to temples of dusky thought:
philosophers partaking of it are drawn by the arms of garlanded nymphs
about their necks into the fathomless of inquiries. It presents us with
a sphere, for the pursuit of the thing we covet most. It bubbles over
mellowness; it has, in the marriage with Time, extracted a spice of
individuality from the saccharine: by miracle, one would say, were it
not for our knowledge of the right noble issue of Time when he and good