osopher, Adrian had no objection to its being either;
and he had only to consider which was temporarily most threatening to
the ridiculous System he had to support. Richard's absence annoyed him.
The youth was vivacious, and his enthusiasm good fun; and besides, when
he left table, Adrian had to sit alone with Hippias and the Eighteenth
Century, from both of whom he had extracted all the amusement that could
be got, and he saw his digestion menaced by the society of two ruined
stomachs, who bored him just when he loved himself most. Poor Hippias
was now so reduced that he had profoundly to calculate whether a
particular dish, or an extra-glass of wine, would have a bitter effect
on him and be felt through the remainder of his years. He was in the
habit of uttering his calculations half aloud, wherein the prophetic
doubts of experience, and the succulent insinuations of appetite,
contended hotly. It was horrible to hear him, so let us pardon Adrian
for tempting him to a decision in favour of the moment.

"Happy to take wine with you," Adrian would say, and Hippias would
regard the decanter with a pained forehead, and put up the doctor.

"Drink, nephew Hippy, and think of the doctor to-morrow!" the Eighteenth
Century cheerily ruffles her cap at him, and recommends her own
practice.

"It's this literary work!" interjects Hippias, handling his glass of
remorse. "I don't know what else it can be. You have no idea how anxious
I feel. I have frightful dreams. I'm perpetually anxious."

"No wonder," says Adrian, who enjoys the childish simplicity to which
an absorbed study of his sensational existence has brought poor Hippias.
"No wonder. Ten years of Fairy Mythology! Could anyone hope to sleep in
peace after that? As to your digestion, no one has a digestion who is in
the doctor's hands. They prescribe from dogmas, and don't count on the
system. They have cut you down from two bottles to two glasses. It's
absurd. You can't sleep, because your system is crying out for what it's
accustomed to."

Hippias sips his Madeira with a niggerdly confidence, but assures Adrian
that he really should not like to venture on a bottle now: it would be
rank madness to venture on a bottle now, he thinks. Last night only,
after partaking, under protest, of that rich French dish, or was it the
duck?--Adrian advised him to throw the blame on that vulgar bird.--Say
the duck, then. Last night, he was no sooner stretched in bed, than he
seemed to