Here, indeed, this freak of fortune was felt to be all the more cruel on
account of the impossibility of resenting it openly; but the delighted
grandfather cared nothing for what the John Pontifexes might feel or not
feel; he had wanted a grandson and he had got a grandson, and this should
be enough for everybody; and, now that Mrs Theobald had taken to good
ways, she might bring him more grandsons, which would be desirable, for
he should not feel safe with fewer than three.

He rang the bell for the butler.

"Gelstrap," he said solemnly, "I want to go down into the cellar."

Then Gelstrap preceded him with a candle, and he went into the inner
vault where he kept his choicest wines.

He passed many bins: there was 1803 Port, 1792 Imperial Tokay, 1800
Claret, 1812 Sherry, these and many others were passed, but it was not
for them that the head of the Pontifex family had gone down into his
inner cellar. A bin, which had appeared empty until the full light of
the candle had been brought to bear upon it, was now found to contain a
single pint bottle. This was the object of Mr Pontifex's search.

Gelstrap had often pondered over this bottle. It had been placed there
by Mr Pontifex himself about a dozen years previously, on his return from
a visit to his friend the celebrated traveller Dr Jones--but there was no
tablet above the bin which might give a clue to the nature of its
contents. On more than one occasion when his master had gone out and
left his keys accidentally behind him, as he sometimes did, Gelstrap had
submitted the bottle to all the tests he could venture upon, but it was
so carefully sealed that wisdom remained quite shut out from that
entrance at which he would have welcomed her most gladly--and indeed from
all other entrances, for he could make out nothing at all.

And now the mystery was to be solved. But alas! it seemed as though the
last chance of securing even a sip of the contents was to be removed for
ever, for Mr Pontifex took the bottle into his own hands and held it up
to the light after carefully examining the seal. He smiled and left the
bin with the bottle in his hands.

Then came a catastrophe. He stumbled over an empty hamper; there was the
sound of a fall--a smash of broken glass, and in an instant the cellar
floor was covered with the liquid that had been preserved so carefully
for so many years.

With his usual presence of mind Mr Pontifex gasped out a month's warning
to Gel