when port-wine was scarcely drunk in this
country--though the Queen liked it, and so did Harley; but Bolingbroke
didn't--he drank Florence and Champagne. Dr. Swift put water to his
wine. 'Jonathan,' I once said to him--but bah! autres temps, autres
moeurs. Another magnum, James."

This was all very well. "My good sir," I said, "it may suit you to order
bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a bottle; but that kind of price
does not suit me. I only happen to have thirty-four and sixpence in my
pocket, of which I want a shilling for the waiter, and eighteenpence for
my cab. You rich foreigners and SWELLS may spend what you like" (I had
him there: for my friend's dress was as shabby as an old-clothesman's);
"but a man with a family, Mr. What-d'you-call'im, cannot afford to spend
seven or eight hundred a year on his dinner alone."

"Bah!" he said. "Nunkey pays for all, as you say. I will what you
call stant the dinner, if you are SO POOR!" and again he gave that
disagreeable grin, and placed an odious crooked-nailed and by no means
clean finger to his nose. But I was not so afraid of him now, for we
were in a public place; and the three glasses of port-wine had, you see,
given me courage.

"What a pretty snuff-box!" he remarked, as I handed him mine, which I am
still old-fashioned enough to carry. It is a pretty old gold box enough,
but valuable to me especially as a relic of an old, old relative, whom
I can just remember as a child, when she was very kind to me. "Yes;
a pretty box. I can remember when many ladies--most ladies, carried
a box--nay, two boxes--tabatiere, and bonbonniere. What lady carries
snuff-box now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly
were to offer you a prise? I can remember a lady with such a box as
this, with a tour, as we used to call it then; with paniers, with a
tortoise-shell cane, with the prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes
in the world!--ah! that was a time, that was a time! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I
have thee now in my mind's eye! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk
with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love thee? Did I not walk with thee
then? Do I not see thee still?"

This was passing strange. My ancestress--but there is no need to publish
her revered name--did indeed live at Bungay St. Mary's, where she lies
buried. She used to walk with a tortoise-shell cane. She used to wear
little black velvet shoes, with the prettiest high heels in the world.

"Did you--did you--know,