I kick the Mad Doctor, and apologise. Was feeling
about for a footstool. BEILBY is trying to talk about Base Ball to
the General, who is still red. Nothing is more disagreeable than these
international discussions at dinner.
Now, a clever host would know how to get out of this; he would start
some other subject. I can think of no other subject. Happy thought:
gradually glide into American cookery, clams, canvas-backed ducks,
what is that dish with a queer name--Jumbo? I don't feel as if it
were Jumbo. Squambo? Terapin soup? It sounds rather like the Hebrew
for a talisman, or an angel of some sort. However, they are talking
about cookery now, and wines. Is there not an American wine called
Catawampus? The Mad Doctor has his eye on me; he seems interested.
I thought I heard him murmur Aspasia, or Aphasia, or something
like that. It is not Catawampus--it is Catawba. I feel that I
_patauge_--flounder, I mean. I am getting quite nervous; feel like a
man in a powder-magazine, with lighted cigarettes everywhere. If one
can withdraw them to the smoking-room, they will settle down somehow.
They do. The Military Critic gets into a corner with BEILBY. The
Americans and I consort together. Most agreeable fellows; have been
everywhere, and seen everything. CRIMPTON, luckily, is reading one of
his own reviews in the evening paper.
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