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