Hasten,
Selim, and bring that bottle; you know which and bring me the silver
goblets. I brought this bottle on purpose for this event, which
I hoped would come to pass, though often it seemed useless to expect
it."
Selim knew where the bottle was, and he soon returned with it - a
bottle of Sillery champagne; and, handing the Doctor a silver
goblet brimful of the exhilarating wine, and pouring a small
quantity into my own, I said,
"Dr. Livingstone, to your very good health, sir."
"And to yours!" he responded, smilingly.
And the champagne I had treasured for this happy meeting was drunk
with hearty good wishes to each other.
But we kept on talking and talking, and prepared food was being
brought to us all that afternoon; and we kept on eating each time
it was brought, until I had eaten even to repletion, and the Doctor
was obliged to confess that he had eaten enough. Still, Halimah,
the female cook of the Doctor's establishment, was in a state of
the greatest excitement. She had been protruding her head out of
the cookhouse to make sure that there were really two white men
sitting down in the veranda, when there used to be only one, who
would not, because he could not, eat anything; and she had been
considerably exercised in her mind about this fact. She was
afraid the Doctor did not properly appreciate her culinary
abilities; but now she was amazed at the extraordinary quantity
of food eaten, and she was in a state of delightful excitement.
We could hear her tongue rolling off a tremendous volume of
clatter to the wondering crowds who halted before the kitchen
to hear the current of news with which she edified them.
