I think you must have been
drunk--it had a name like one of those spots that Uncle Joseph used to
hold forth at, and it was all full of the most awful swipes about poetry
and the use of the globes. It was the kind of thing that nobody could
read out of a lunatic asylum. The Athaeneum, that was the name! Golly,
what a paper!'
'Athenaeum, you mean,' said Morris.
'I don't care what you call it,' said John, 'so as I don't require to
take it in! There, I feel better. Now I'm going to sit by the fire in
the easy-chair; pass me the cheese, and the celery, and the bottle of
port--no, a champagne glass, it holds more. And now you can pitch in;
there's some of the fish left and a chop, and some fizz. Ah,' sighed the
refreshed pedestrian, 'Michael was right about that port; there's old
and vatted for you! Michael's a man I like; he's clever and reads books,
and the Athaeneum, and all that; but he's not dreary to meet, he don't
talk Athaeneum like the other parties; why, the most of them would throw
a blight over a skittle alley! Talking of Michael, I ain't bored myself
to put the question, because of course I knew it from the first.
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