“I shall have a grate dale of pleasure in so doing,” said the general; “but Augustus, now, I entrate you, lade the young man into no scrapes: and don’t let us hear of his being gored by a buffalo, or ate up by a tiger, or killed by some of them brutes of horses of yours.” “Oh! no,” said Augustus, laughing and winking at me; “well take care of all that, sir.” CHAPTER XII. My last chapter left us seated around the social board at Tiffin. A little incident occurred during this meal, which for a moment disturbed the harmony of the party, and, whilst strongly elucidating the character given by Mrs. Delaval of her father, showed that her caution to me, to be on my guard with the atrabilious old hero, was not bestowed without reason. The general’s temper truly was like a pistol with a hair-trigger (as I had afterwards further occasion to observe), going off at the slightest touch, and requiring infinite caution in the handling. Like many old Indians of that day, and I may add, most old gentlemen, the general piqued himself on the quality of his wines. He had a history for every batch; generally ramifying into almost interminable anecdotes of the Dicks and Bobs, defunct _bon vivans_ of other days, who in the course of half a century had partaken of his hospitality. “What do you think of that claret, Mr. Gernon?” asked the old general, after I had duly engulphed a _bonum magnum_ of it. “I’ll engage you find that good.” Now I must confess that, up to that period (sundry glasses of ginger and gooseberry inclusive), the aggregate quantity of vinous fluid consumed by me, and constituting the basis of my experience, could not have exceeded two or three dozen at the most. But I was flattered by the general’s appeal, and, as a military man, I felt that I ought not to appear ignorant and inexperienced on such a matter. Many young Oxonians and Cantabs, whom I had known at home, little my seniors, had talked flingingly in my presence of “their wine,” and the quantity consumed by the “men” of their respective colleges; and why should not I, methought, assume the air of the “_savoir vivre_,” and appear at home in these things, who have already figured in print and buckled cold steel on my thigh? I had heard much, too, of light wines, and dry wines, wines that were full and strong-bodied, &c., and, though I attached no very clear and definite ideas to these terms, I had still a hazy conception of their meaning, and was determined, at all events, to sport one or two of them on the present occasion. In reply to the general’s question, I filled a glass, and after taking an observation of the sun through it (just then darting his evening rays through the venetians) with my right eye, accompanied by a scientific screw of the facial muscles, pronounced it, with a smack, to be a fine full-bodied wine, adding, unhappily, that “I should have almost taken it for port.”