continued with increased blandness, "it was
about blood you were talking, and the personal advantages which people
derive from patrician birth. Here's the fresh bottle."

"Blood's the word," said James, gulping the ruby fluid down. "Nothing
like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, AND men. Why, only last term, just
before I was rusticated, that is, I mean just before I had the measles,
ha, ha--there was me and Ringwood of Christchurch, Bob Ringwood, Lord
Cinqbars' son, having our beer at the Bell at Blenheim, when the
Banbury bargeman offered to fight either of us for a bowl of punch. I
couldn't. My arm was in a sling; couldn't even take the drag down--a
brute of a mare of mine had fell with me only two days before, out with
the Abingdon, and I thought my arm was broke. Well, sir, I couldn't
finish him, but Bob had his coat off at once--he stood up to the
Banbury man for three minutes, and polished him off in four rounds
easy. Gad, how he did drop, sir, and what was it? Blood, sir, all
blood."

"You don't drink, James," the ex-attache continued. "In my time at
Oxford, the men passed round the bottle a little quicker than you young
fellows seem to do."

"Come, come," said James, putting his hand to his nose and winking at
his cousin with a pair of vinous eyes, "no jokes, old boy; no trying it
on on me. You want to trot me out, but it's no go. In vino veritas,
old boy. Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, hey? I wish my aunt would send
down some of this to the governor; it's a precious good tap."

"You had better ask her," Machiavel continued, "or make the best of
your time now. What says the bard? 'Nunc vino pellite curas, Cras
ingens iterabimus aequor,'" and the Bacchanalian, quoting the above
with a House of Commons air, tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine
with an immense flourish of his glass.

At the Rectory, when the bottle of port wine was opened after dinner,
the young ladies had each a glass from a bottle of currant wine. Mrs.
Bute took one glass of port, honest James had a couple commonly, but as
his father grew very sulky if he made further inroads on the bottle,
the good lad generally refrained from trying for more, and subsided
either into the currant wine, or to some private gin-and-water in the
stables, which he enjoyed in the company of the coachman and his pipe.
At Oxford, the quantity of wine was unlimited, but the quality was
inferior: but when quantity and quality united as at his aunt's house,