"Not so good as you think it, sir. But nice light claret; clean and
wholesome. I hope you haven't given too much for it?"
Thus far, Hugh had played a losing game patiently. His reward had come
at last. After what the doctor had just said to him, he saw the winning
card safe in his own hand.
The bad dinner was soon over. No soup, of course; fish, in the state of
preservation usually presented by a decayed country town; steak that
rivalled the toughness of india-rubber; potatoes whose aspect said,
"stranger, don't eat us"; pudding that would have produced a sense of
discouragement, even in the mind of a child; and the famous English
cheese which comes to us, oddly enough, from the United States, and
stings us vindictively when we put it into our mouths. But the wine,
the glorious wine, would have made amends to anybody but Mr. Vimpany
for the woeful deficiencies of the food. Tumbler-full after
tumbler-full of that noble vintage poured down his thirsty and ignorant
throat; and still he persisted in declaring that it was nice light
stuff, and still he unforgivingly bore in mind the badness of the
dinner.
"The feeding here," said this candid man, "is worse if possible than
the feeding at sea, when I served as doctor on board a passenger-
steamer.
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