So it was that on the following night he enjoyed a home evening with the Montagues. Mrs. Montague had indeed cooked up something else, and had done it well; while Mr. Montague offered at the sideboard a choice of amateur distillations and brews which he warmly recommended to the guest. While the guest timidly considered, having had but the slightest experience with intoxicants, it developed that the confidence placed in his product by the hospitable old craftsman was not shared by his daughter. “Keep off it,” she warned, and then to her father, “Say, listen, Pa, have a heart; that boy’s got to work to-morrow.” “So be it, my child,” replied Mr. Montague with a visible stiffening of manner. “Sylvester Montague is not the man to urge strong drink upon the reluctant or the over-cautious. I shall drink my aperatif alone.” “Go to it, old Pippin,” rejoined his daughter as she vanished to the kitchen. “Still, a little dish of liquor at this hour,” continued the host suggestively when they were alone. “Well”--Merton wished the girl had stayed--“perhaps just a few drops.” “Precisely, my boy, precisely. A mere dram.” He poured the mere dram and his guest drank. It was a colourless, fiery stuff with an elusive taste of metal. Merton contrived an expression of pleasure under the searching glance of his host. “Ah, I knew you would relish it. I fancy I could amaze you if I told you how recently it was made. Now here”--He grasped another bottle purposely--“is something a full ten days older. It has developed quite a bouquet. Just a drop--” The guest graciously yet firmly waved a negation. “Thanks,” he said, “but I want to enjoy the last--it--it has so much flavour.” “It has; it has, indeed. I’ll not urge you, of course. Later you must see the simple mechanism by which I work these wonders. Alone, then, I drink to you.” Mr. Montague alone drank of two other fruits of his loom before the ladies appeared with dinner. He was clean--shaven now and his fine face glowed with hospitality as he carved roast chickens. The talk was of the shop: of what Mr. Montague scornfully called “grind shows” when his daughter led it, and of the legitimate hall-show when he gained the leadership. He believed that moving pictures had sounded the knell of true dramatic art and said so in many ways.