A WATER DRINKER
nounce the verdict which had satisfied myself and host. Alas! nuper idoneus vixi Lyæo! We—let the kindly plural shelter my singular aberration—we have become a degraded thing that has taken to drinking soda-water, or H2O tempered with flavour of toast; our cup is filled, but only with misery and aqua pura, and yet—for a drinker’s crown of sorrow is remembering wetter days—an ironclad of the first class had floated in the champagne we have drank in the past. As we write, the 1893 vintage of claret is coming on. It is to be the best vintage since 1875. We had been careful to secure a lease in perpetuity at a peppercorn rent of a great empty cellar free from vibration and all disturbance. This it was our glorious intention to fill from ground to rafter (our
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