Silence again. Then, suddenly brisking up, ‘But _à propos_, as the Marquis says’; and, pulling out thy big watch, ‘ay, the lunch hour is at hand. Tobias, hither, thou Rose of Sharon,’ summoning a ruddy-cheeked young servitor, ‘go, see if the steward has ordered it as I directed, kept that _Chambertin_ three leagues from his refrigerator and the bottles in readiness to be gently immersed up to the neck--mind, up to the neck in a water-cooler, the water of its natural temperature at this season. Go, lad, it is important.’ Then turning to the quiet listener, ‘Sir, for myself I am not so particular about these matters, but the two friends I expect to dine with me--Jerry Bland and Captain Don Tempest of the Navy--well, you know them--are; and one must humour the peculiar tastes of one’s friends, you know.’ Here, suddenly reminded that an immediate courtesy was due. ‘Of course, my good sir, you will join us. Nay, I insist upon it. Not good for a man to be alone, especially on the immortal Fourth. Tobias, come back. Tut, he’s gone. William! Go, say we will dine at the round table in the south-west corner, and let there be four covers--four, mind.’ Even so, Major, or much so, on the last Fourth, sitting in the club parlour didst thou by turns ruminate and expatiate, and humorously rail and feelingly evoke the bygone and glow as in the poetic fervour of youth, and involuntarily sigh the sigh of old philosophy, till in the end the home-sense of the eternal sagacity of all things did but result in awakening in thee but the more vividly thy relish for life and the _Chambertin_. But on the forenoon of each thirtieth of May, seated--minus the aforesaid historic decoration--in thy reserved corner of the club balcony, in graven sort thou lookest down on the floral march of the _Grand Army_. Then seemed thou even less intent on returning the greetings from some hale comrade in the ranks, or less hearty hero borne along in open barouche; less dwelling, too, on the processional wains of nodding flowers, followed close by nodding plumes of the escort--to thee and the other veterans--a new generation of Mars--less absorbed by all this, than musing on the many mounds those same flowers ere nightfall shall dress. Thy constitutional good spirits seem strangely overcast that day. Thou forgoest the banquet. Nevertheless, it is observable that in the balcony thy empty sleeve is disposed more picturesquely, nay, somehow more conspicuously on that aforesaid thirtieth of every May, than on any other morning of the year. It more catches the eye. Now and then, during pauses in the procession, the crowd on the sidewalk below glance up at it, and expressively, and thou turnest not aside.