Mason, the Chicago man, had no such scruples. He had twice as much money as Hodges, four times his digestion and ten times his commonsense.
“Send that dish back here, Breen,” Mason cried out in a clear voice--so loud that Parkins, winged by the shot, retraced his steps. “I want to see what Mr. Hodges is talking about. Never saw a truffle that I know of.” Here he turned the bits of raw rubber over with his fork. “No. Take it away. Guess I'll pass. Hog saw it first; he can have it.”
Hodges's face flushed, then he joined in the laugh. The Chicago man was too valuable a would-be subscriber to quarrel with. And, then, how impossible to expect a person brought up as Mason had been to understand the ordinary refinements of civilization.
“Rough diamond, Mason--Good fellow. Backbone of our country,” Hodges whispered to the Colonel, who was sore from the strain of repressed hilarity. “A little coarse now and then--but that comes of his early life, no doubt.”
Hodges waited his chance and again launched out; this time it was upon the various kinds of wines his cellar contained--their cost--who had approved of them--how impossible it was to duplicate some of them, especially some Johannesburg of '74.
“Forty-two dollars a bottle--not pressed in the ordinary way--just the weight of the grapes in the basket in which they are gathered in the vineyard, and what naturally drips through is caught and put aside,” etc.
Breen winced. First his truffles were criticised, and now his pet Johannesburg that Parkins was pouring into special glasses--cooled to an exact temperature--part of a case, he explained to Nixon, who sat on his right, that Count Mosenheim had sent to a friend here. Something must be done to head Hodges off or there was no telling what might happen. The Madeira was the thing. He knew that was all right, for Purviance had found it in Baltimore--part of a private cellar belonging some time in the past to either the Swan or Thomas families--he could not remember which.
The redheads were now in order, with squares of fried hominy, and for the moment Hodges held his peace. This was Nixon's opportunity, and he made the most of it. He had been born on the eastern shore of Maryland and was brought up on canvasbacks, soft-shell crabs and terrapin--not to mention clams and sheepshead. Nixon therefore launched out on the habits of the sacred bird--the crimes committed by the swivel-gun in the hands of the marketmen, the consequent scarcity of the game and the near approach of the time when the only rare specimens would be found in the glass cases of the museums, ending his talk with a graphic description of the great wooden platters of boiling-hot terrapin which were served to passengers crossing to Norfolk in the old days. The servants would split off the hot shell--this was turned top side down, used as a dish and filled with butter, pepper and salt, into which toothsome bits of the reptile, torn out by the guests' forks, were dipped before being eaten.