more of the wine with the black seal left, Sir!"

"No more, good Dixon; you mistake grievously. I had two dozen not a week
since."

"Don't know, I'm sure, Sir!" answered Dixon, with a careless and half
impertinent accent; "but there are great things, like alligators, in the
cellar, which break all the bottles!"

"Alligators in my cellar!" said the astonished Clutterbuck.

"Yes, Sir--at least a venomous sort of reptile like them, which the
people about here call efts!"

"What!" said Clutterbuck, innocently, and evidently not seeing the irony
of his own question; "What! have the efts broken two dozen bottles in a
week? Of an exceeding surety, it is strange that a little creature of the
lizard species should be so destructive--perchance they have an antipathy
to the vinous smell; I will confer with my learned friend, Dr.
Dissectall, touching their strength and habits. Bring up some of the
port, then, good Dixon."

"Yes, Sir. All the corn is out; I had none for the gentleman's horse."

"Why, Dixon, my memory fails me strangely, or I paid you the sum of four
pounds odd shillings for corn on Friday last."

"Yes, Sir: but your cow and the chickens eat so much, and then blind
Dobbin has four feeds a day, and Farmer Johnson always puts his horse in
our stable, and Mrs. Clutterbuck and the ladies fed the jackass the other