"Thought you might find a use for these," he said off-handedly. (They were packs of cards that had been used once in some Club or other.) "And you might as well have the latest multiple corkscrew as anybody else, I suppose, eh? Catch!--Now, friends and gentlemen all, oblige me by joining me in a smoke. The curtains, mother? Dash the curtains; Massey don't get engaged every day, at least I hope he doesn't; not that there's any knowing what some of them does under the rose--ha, ha, ha!... Now, Sandys, help yourself. Here's a cutter. Smoke half of it, and then throw t'other half away; there's plenty more in the box.--Now, where's Rainbow? Here you are; you're my man; _you_ know a little bit of all right when you taste it; half a minute, and I'll ask your opinion of _this_----" Mr. Wellcome's face became deeply serious as he stooped for a minute; then, as he stood upright again with a bottle in his right hand and a liqueur glass in his left, it shone once more. "Steady ... _there_!" He passed an exquisitely filled glass to Mr. Rainbow. "Warm it in your hands a minute first--this way--smell it--and now roll it slowly round the inside o' your mouth!----" Had Mr. Rainbow been Cinquevalli balancing the billiard-balls every eye could not have been more intently on him. "_Mmmmmm!_" he murmured ecstatically, lips closed, nostrils gently sniffing, eyes fondling the glass. "Eh?" said Mr. Wellcome, winking to all and sundry, as much as to say, Hadn't he told them so? "Eh? What? Spanish, should you say? _I_ should think so! W. W. gives you _his_ word for that, worth something or worth nothing as the case may be!... Now, all! Rainbow's only the taster, in case it was poison; you hold that tray steady, Antonionio; ladies first, I think, is the law of politeness----" And the tiny glasses, rich and deep as Amory's hair, were passed round.