plain man, with yellow eyebrows, yellow
head partly bald, and his red face blue specked with powder marks due
to a premature blast in his mining days. Mason couldn't tell the best
Tiernan Madeira from corner-grocery sherry, and preferred whiskey at any
and all hours--and what was more, never assumed for one instant that he
could.

Then came Hodges, the immaculately dressed epicure--a pale,
clean-shaven, eye-glassed, sterilized kind of a man with a long neck
and skinny fingers, who boasted of having twenty-one different clarets
stored away under his sidewalk which were served to ordinary guests, and
five special vintages which he kept under lock and key, and which were
only uncorked for the elect, and who invariably munched an olive before
sampling the next wine. Then followed such lesser lights, as Nixon,
Leslie and the other guests.

A most exacting group of bons vivants, these. The host had realized
it and had brought out his best. Most of it, to be sure, had come from
Beaver Street, something "rather dry, with an excellent bouquet," the
crafty salesman with gimlet eyes had said; but, then, most of the old
Madeira does come from Beaver Street, except Portman's, who has a fellow
with a nose and a palate hunting the auction rooms for that particular
Sunset of 1834 which had lain in old Mr. Grinnells cellar for twenty-two
years; and that other of 1839, once possessed by Colonel Purviance,
a wine which had so sharpened the Colonel's taste that he was always
uncomfortable when dining outside of his club or away from the tables of
one or two experts like himself.

These, then, were the palates to which Breen catered. Back of them lay
their good-will and good feeling; still back of them, again, their bank
accounts and--another scoop in Mukton! Most of the guests had had a hand
in the last deal and they were ready to share in the next. Although this
particular dinner was supposed to be a celebration of the late victory,
two others, equally elaborate, had preceded it; both Crossbin and Hodges
having entertained nearly this same group of men at their own tables.
That Breen, with his reputation for old Madeira and his supposed
acquaintance with the intricacies of a Maryland kitchen, would outclass
them both, had been whispered a dozen times since the receipt of his
invitation, and he knew it. Hence the alert boy, the chef in the white
cap, and hence the seesawing on the hearth-rug.

"Like it, Crossbin?" asked Breen.

Park