ch were taken up with the soup and
the bringing in of the fish, I should probably have thought, if I had not
long since made up my mind about him, what a fine old man he was and how
proud his children should be of him; but suddenly as he was helping
himself to lobster sauce, he flushed crimson, a look of extreme vexation
suffused his face, and he darted two furtive but fiery glances to the two
ends of the table, one for Theobald and one for Christina. They, poor
simple souls, of course saw that something was exceedingly wrong, and so
did I, but I couldn't guess what it was till I heard the old man hiss in
Christina's ear: "It was not made with a hen lobster. What's the use,"
he continued, "of my calling the boy Ernest, and getting him christened
in water from the Jordan, if his own father does not know a cock from a
hen lobster?"

This cut me too, for I felt that till that moment I had not so much as
known that there were cocks and hens among lobsters, but had vaguely
thought that in the matter of matrimony they were even as the angels in
heaven, and grew up almost spontaneously from rocks and sea-weed.

Before the next course was over Mr Pontifex had recovered his temper, and
from that time to the end of the evening he was at his best. He told us
all about the water from the Jordan; how it had been brought by Dr Jones
along with some stone jars of water from the Rhine, the Rhone, the Elbe
and the Danube, and what trouble he had had with them at the Custom
Houses, and how the intention had been to make punch with waters from all
the greatest rivers in Europe; and how he, Mr Pontifex, had saved the
Jordan water from going into the bowl, etc., etc. "No, no, no," he
continued, "it wouldn't have done at all, you know; very profane idea; so
we each took a pint bottle of it home with us, and the punch was much
better without it. I had a narrow escape with mine, though, the other
day; I fell over a hamper in the cellar, when I was getting it up to
bring to Battersby, and if I had not taken the greatest care the bottle
would certainly have been broken, but I saved it." And Gelstrap was
standing behind his chair all the time!

Nothing more happened to ruffle Mr Pontifex, so we had a delightful
evening, which has often recurred to me while watching the after career
of my godson.

I called a day or two afterwards and found Mr Pontifex still at
Battersby, laid up with one of those attacks of liver and depression to
which