twice as much money
as Hodges, four times his digestion and ten times his commonsense.

"Send that dish back here, Breen," Mason cried out in a clear voice--so
loud that Parkins, winged by the shot, retraced his steps. "I want to
see what Mr. Hodges is talking about. Never saw a truffle that I know
of." Here he turned the bits of raw rubber over with his fork. "No. Take
it away. Guess I'll pass. Hog saw it first; he can have it."

Hodges's face flushed, then he joined in the laugh. The Chicago man
was too valuable a would-be subscriber to quarrel with. And, then, how
impossible to expect a person brought up as Mason had been to understand
the ordinary refinements of civilization.

"Rough diamond, Mason--Good fellow. Backbone of our country," Hodges
whispered to the Colonel, who was sore from the strain of repressed
hilarity. "A little coarse now and then--but that comes of his early
life, no doubt."

Hodges waited his chance and again launched out; this time it was upon
the various kinds of wines his cellar contained--their cost--who had
approved of them--how impossible it was to duplicate some of them,
especially some Johannesburg of '74.

"Forty-two dollars a bottle--not pressed in the ordinary way--just the
weight of the grapes in the basket in which they are gathered in the
vineyard, and what naturally drips through is caught and put aside,"
etc.

Breen winced. First his truffles were criticised, and now his pet
Johannesburg that Parkins was pouring into special glasses--cooled to an
exact temperature--part of a case, he explained to Nixon, who sat on his
right, that Count Mosenheim had sent to a friend here. Something must be
done to head Hodges off or there was no telling what might happen. The
Madeira was the thing. He knew that was all right, for Purviance had
found it in Baltimore--part of a private cellar belonging some time in
the past to either the Swan or Thomas families--he could not remember
which.

The redheads were now in order, with squares of fried hominy, and for
the moment Hodges held his peace. This was Nixon's opportunity, and he
made the most of it. He had been born on the eastern shore of Maryland
and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-shell crabs and terrapin--not to
mention clams and sheepshead. Nixon therefore launched out on the habits
of the sacred bird--the crimes committed by the swivel-gun in the hands
of the marketmen, the consequent scarcity of the game and the near
approach