anger and contempt.

"_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia.

Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple,
who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder,
said:

"Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no
less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas."

"Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss
Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?"

"Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will
like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate
sherry."

"Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said
the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away.

They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a
litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of
wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting
horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a
cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and
gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose.

"Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that
the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of
oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever
saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone."

Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner
had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had
acquired such an unerring taste.

"Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you
will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?"

Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in
Spain, haven't you?"

"Yes," said Farnham.

"You know this is the genuine stuff, then?"

"No doubt of it."

"_How_ do you know?"

"The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know
what they are about."

"Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have
learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans
among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since,
here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything
about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my
strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons an