e the report.

The Cellarman's appearance, the moment he put his head in at the door of
his master's private room, suggested that something very extraordinary
must have happened that morning. There was an approach to alacrity in
Joey Ladle's movements! There was something which actually simulated
cheerfulness in Joey Ladle's face

"What's the matter?" asked Vendale. "Anything wrong?"

"I should wish to mention one thing," answered Joey. "Young Mr. Vendale,
I have never set myself up for a prophet."

"Who ever said you did?"

"No prophet, as far as I've heard I tell of that profession," proceeded
Joey, "ever lived principally underground. No prophet, whatever else he
might take in at the pores, ever took in wine from morning to night, for
a number of years together. When I said to young Master Wilding,
respecting his changing the name of the firm, that one of these days he
might find he'd changed the luck of the firm--did I put myself forward as
a prophet? No, I didn't. Has what I said to him come true? Yes, it
has. In the time of Pebbleson Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing
was ever known as a mistake made in a consignment delivered at these
doors. There's a mistake been made now. Please to remark that it
happened before Miss Margaret came here. For which reason it don't go
against what I've said respecting Miss Margaret singing round the luck.
Read that, sir," concluded Joey, pointing attention to a special passage
in the report, with a forefinger which appeared to be in process of
taking in through the pores nothing more remarkable than dirt. "It's
foreign to my nature to crow over the house I serve, but I feel it a kind
of solemn duty to ask you to read that."

Vendale read as follows:--"Note, respecting the Swiss champagne. An
irregularity has been discovered in the last consignment received from
the firm of Defresnier and Co." Vendale stopped, and referred to a
memorandum-book by his side. "That was in Mr. Wilding's time," he said.
"The vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole of it.
The Swiss champagne has done very well, hasn't it?"

"I don't say it's done badly," answered the Cellarman. "It may have got
sick in our customers' bins, or it may have bust in our customers' hands.
But I don't say it's done badly with us."

Vendale resumed the reading of the note: "We find the number of the cases
to be quite correct by the books. But six of them, which present a
slig