But It Would
Not Do; With Untasted Bumpers, And Dejected Faces, They
Politely Waited Until I Should Give The Signal For A
Renewal Of HOSTilities, As They Well Deserved To Be
Called.
Then there came over me a horrid, wicked feeling.
What if I should endeavour to floor the Governor, and so
literally turn the tables on him!
It is true I had lived
for five-and-twenty years without touching wine, - but
was not I my great-grandfather's great-grandson, and an
Irish peer to boot? Were there not traditions, too, on
the other side of the house, of casks of claret brought
up into the dining-room, the door locked, and the key
thrown out of the window? With such antecedents to sustain
me, I ought to be able to hold my own against the staunchest
toper in Iceland! So, with a devil glittering in my left
eye, I winked defiance right and left, and away we went
at it again for another five-and-forty minutes. At last
their fire slackened: I had partially quelled both the
Governor and the Rector, and still survived. It is true
I did not feel comfortable; but it was in the neighbourhood
of my waistcoat, not my head, I suffered. "I am not well,
but I will not out," I soliloquized, with Lepidus [footnote:
Antony and Cleopatra.] - (Greek) "Sos moi ro prepov," I
would have added, had I dared. Still the neck of the
banquet was broken - Fitzgerald's chair was not yet
empty, - could we hold out perhaps a quarter of an hour
longer, our reputation was established; guess then my
horror, when the Icelandic Doctor, shouting his favourite
dogma, by way of battle cry, "Si trigintis guttis, morbum
curare velis, erras," gave the signal for an unexpected
onslaught, and the twenty guests poured down on me in
succession.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 44 of 286
Words from 12320 to 12627
of 79667
