Mr. Lapwing was cracking a nut. He said gloomily:
“Hullo, Valentine! Did you ring up to say you were coming round? I
didn’t get the message.”
“I came,” said Valentine, “on an impulse.”
Mr. Lapwing said: “I see. Well, sit down, sit down! I don’t want you
towering over me while I am trying to digest my food. Or is it one of
those impulses you have to stand up to?”
Valentine said: “If you really want to know, I don’t care if I never sit
down again. But I will, if only to show how well you’ve brought me up.”
“Now I don’t want any cheek,” said Mr. Lapwing.
“Cheek!” said Valentine, and he laughed, and the way he laughed caused
Mr. Lapwing to look sharply up at him.
“Cheek!” said Valentine. “If you knew as much about cheek as I do, sir,
you would think I was talking like a courtier.”
“Oh, sit down, sit down!” said Mr. Lapwing.
Now a gentleman called Mr. Lapwing can neither need nor merit any
further description. Mr. Lapwing looked in no way different from the way
that a Mr. Lapwing should look. Thin, tiresome, bald, boring, gouty,
gloomy. We see him for the first time at that end of his dinner when he
would sit a while at the table and stare with conscious
absent-mindedness into space, after the manner of any English gentleman
who is not averse from a drop of old brandy after his meals. Mr.
Lapwing’s was an old-world palate, and he enjoyed above all things a
drop of old brandy.
The dining-room of the house in Cadogan Gardens was large, austere, dim.
From where Valentine sat at the oval polished table, in the light of the
four candles which played in shadows about his guardian’s thin lined
face, the severe appointments of the room were as though seen through a
dark mist. Mr. Lapwing was not only a connoisseur of polite stimulants
but was known to many dealers as a formidable collector of Meryon’s
etchings; and the sombre fancies of the young Frenchman’s genius peered
at Valentine from the dim walls, as they might be old mocking friends
uncertain of recognition.
Mr. Lapwing said gloomily: “Port, Valentine? Or Sherry?”
“Brandy,” said Valentine.
“Drat the boy!” said Mr. Lapwing. “Fountain! Where are you, man? Oh,
there you are! Give the boy some brandy.”
Mr. Lapwing was old enough, but Fountain was older. From the dimness he
emerged, to the dimness returned. Fountain was very old. Mr. Lapwing
said: “Go away, Fountain. We don’t want you. The brandy, Valentine, is
at your elbow.”
“Thank you,” said Valentine.
“The difference between beer and brandy,” said Mr. Lapwing gloomily,
“is that it is not unusual to pour out a full glass of beer, but it is
damned unusual to take more than a drop of brandy at one time.”
“Depends,” said Valentine, “on the brandy.”
Mr. Lapwing said sharply: “That is very fine brandy.”
“Good!” said Valentine.