It seems a pity that it has not been extended.
There are other things than curtain-rods and electric-light
bulbs which might be left behind in the old house
and picked up again in the new. The silver cigarette-box,
which we have all had as a birthday or wedding present,
might safely be handed over to the incoming tenant,
in the certainty that another just like it will be
waiting for us in our next house. True, it will
have different initials on it, but that will only make
it the more interesting, our own having become fatiguing
to us by this time. Possibly this sort of thing
has already been done in an unofficial way among neighbors.
By mutual agreement they leave their aspidistras and
their “Maiden’s Prayer” behind them.
It saves trouble and expense in the moving, which
is an important thing in these days, and there would
always be the hope that the next aspidistra might
be on the eve of flowering or laying eggs, or whatever
it is that its owner expects from it.
Experts
The man in front of the fire was telling us a story
about his wife and a bottle of claret. He had
taken her to the best restaurant in Paris and had
introduced her to a bottle of the famous Chateau Whatsitsname,
1320 (or thereabouts), a wine absolutely priceless—although
the management, with its customary courtesy, had allowed
him to pay a certain amount for it. Not realizing
that it was actually the famous Whatsitsname, she
had drunk it in the ordinary way, neither holding it
up to the light and saying, “Ah, there’s
a wine!” nor rolling it round the palate before
swallowing. On the next day they went to a commonplace
restaurant and drank a local and contemporary vintage
at five francs the bottle, of similar colour but very
different temperament. When she had finished
her glass, she said hesitatingly, “Of course,
I don’t know anything about wine, and I dare
say I’m quite wrong, but I can’t help
feeling that the claret we had last night was better
than this.”
The man in front of the fire was rather amused by
this, as were most of his audience. For myself,
I felt that the lady demanded my admiration rather
than my amusement. Without the assistance of the
labels, many of us might have decided that it was the
five-franc vintage which was the better wine.
She didn’t. Indeed, I am inclined to read
more into the story than is perhaps there; I believe
that she had misunderstood her husband, and had thought
that the second bottle was the famous, aged, and priceless
Chateau Whatsitsname, and that, in spite of this,
she gave it as her opinion that the first wine, cheap
and modern though it might be, was the better.
Hats off, then, to a brave woman! How many of
us would have her courage and her honesty?
