hortcomings.

"Spirits," went on the Master, wheeling half-about in his
revolving-chair and crossing one shapely gaitered leg over another,
"Spirits--and especially whisky--eat out the health of a man and
leave him a sodden pulp. Beer is honest, but brutalising.
Wine--certainly any good wine that can trace its origin back beyond
the Reformation--is one with all good literature, and indeed with
civilisation. _Antiquam exquirite matrem_: all three come from the
Mediterranean basin or from around it, and it is only the ill-born
who contemn descent."

"Brother Copas--" began Mr. Simeon, and came to a halt.

He lived sparely; he had fasted for many hours; and standing there he
could feel the generous liquor coursing through him--nay could almost
have reported its progress from ganglion to ganglion. He blessed it,
and at the same moment breathed a prayer that it might not affect his
head.

"Brother Copas--?"

Mr. Simeon wished now that he had not begun his sentence.
The invigorating _Chateau Neuf du Pape_ seemed to overtake and chase
away all uncharitable thoughts. But it was too late.

"Brother Copas--you were saying--?"

"I ought not to repeat it, sir. But I heard Brother Copas say the
other day that the teetotallers were in a hopeless case; being mostly
religious men, and yet having to explain in the last instance why Our
Lord, in Cana of Galilee, did not turn the water into ginger-pop."

The Master frowned and stroked his gaiters.

"Brother Copas's tongue is too incisive. Something must be forgiven
to one who, having started as a scholar and a gentleman, finds
himself toward the close of his days dependent on the bread of
charity."

It was benignly spoken; and to Mr. Simeon, who questioned nothing his
patron said or did, no shade of misgiving occurred that, taken down
in writing, it might annotate somewhat oddly the sermon on the table.
It was spoken with insight too, for had not his own poverty, or the
fear of it, sharpened Mr. Simeon's tongue just now and prompted him
to quote Brother Copas detrimentally? The little man did not shape
this accusation clearly against himself, for he had a rambling head;
but he had also a sound heart, and it was uneasy.

"I ought not to have told it, sir. . . . I ask you to believe that I
have no ill-will against Brother Copas."

The Master had arisen, and stood gazing out of the window immersed in
his own thoughts.

"Eh? I beg your pardon?" said he absently.

"