"Don't get scairt," he said, reassuringly, "it ain't loaded."
When all their glasses had been filled, Marcus proposed the health of
the bride, "standing up." The guests rose and drank. Hardly one of them
had ever tasted champagne before. The moment's silence after the toast
was broken by McTeague exclaiming with a long breath of satisfaction:
"That's the best beer I ever drank."
There was a roar of laughter. Especially was Marcus tickled over the
dentist's blunder; he went off in a very spasm of mirth, banging the
table with his fist, laughing until his eyes watered. All through the
meal he kept breaking out into cackling imitations of McTeague's words:
"That's the best BEER I ever drank. Oh, Lord, ain't that a break!"
What a wonderful supper that was! There was oyster soup; there were
sea bass and barracuda; there was a gigantic roast goose stuffed with
chestnuts; there were egg-plant and sweet potatoes--Miss Baker called
them "yams." There was calf's head in oil, over which Mr. Sieppe went
into ecstasies; there was lobster salad; there were rice pudding, and
strawberry ice cream, and wine jelly, and stewed prunes, and cocoanuts,
and mixed nuts, and raisins, and fruit, and tea, and coffee, and mineral
waters, and lemonade.
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