" he said--Rollo did that now and
then to let you know that his was the blood of valets--"left it some
time ago, with the compliments of the prince. It looks like a good,
nitzy Burgundy, sir," added Rollo tolerantly, "though the man did
say it was bottled in something B.C., sir, and if it was it's most
likely flat. You can't trust them vintages much farther back than
the French Revolootion, beggin' your pardon, sir."

Amory absently lifted the decanter, and then looked at it with some
curiosity. The decanter was like a vase, ornamented with gold
medallions covered with exquisite and precise engraving of great
beauty and variety of design. Serpents, men contending with lions,
sacred trees and apes were chased in the gold, and the little cups
of sard were engraved in pomegranates and segments of fruit and
pendent acorns, and were set with cones of cornelian. The cups were
joined by a long cord of thick gold.

Amory set his hand to the little golden stopper, perhaps
hermetically sealed, he thought idly, at about the time of the
accidental discovery of glass itself by the Phoenicians. Amory was
not imaginative, but as he thought of the possible age of the wine,
there lay upon him that fascination communicable from any link
between the present and the living past.

"Solomon and Sargon," he said to himself, "the geese in the capitol,
Marathon, Alexander, Carthage, the Norman conquest, Shakespeare and
Miss Frothingham!"

He smiled and twisted the carven stopper.

"And the girl is alive," he said almost wonderingly. "There has been
so much Time in the world, and yet she is alive now. Down there in
the banquet room."

The odour of the contents of the vase, spicy, penetrating,
delicious, crept out, and he breathed it gratefully. It was like no
odour that he remembered. This was nothing like Rollo's "good, nitzy
Burgundy"--this was something infinitely more wonderful. And the
odour--the odour was like a draught. And wasn't this the wine of
wines, he asked himself, to give them courage, exultation, the most
superb daring when they started up that delectable mountain? St.
George must know; he would think so too.

"Oh, I say," said Amory to himself, "we must put some strength in
Jarvo's bones too--poor little brick!"

With that Amory drew the carven stopper, fitted in the little funnel
that hung about the neck of the vase, poured a half-finger of the
wine in each cup, and lifted one in his hand. But the mere odour was
eno