VI.] AN ICELANDIC DINNER. 37 



it seemed probable this consummation would take place be- 

 fore the second course : so, after having exchanged a dozen 

 rounds of sherry and champagne with my two neighbours, I 

 pretended not to observe that my glass had been refilled ; 

 and, like the sea-captain, who, slipping from between his 

 two opponents, left them to blaze away at each other the 

 long night through, — withdrew from the combat. But it 

 would not do; with untasted bumpers, and dejected faces, 

 they politely waited until I should give the signal for a re- 

 newal of /lostilities, as they well deserved to be called. 

 Then there came over me a horrid, wicked feeling. What 

 if I should endeavour to floor the Governor, and so literally 

 turn the tables on him ! It is true I had lived for five-and- 

 twenty years without touching wine, — but was not I my 

 great-grandfather's great-grandson, and an Irish peer to boot? 

 Were there not traditions, too, on the other side of the 

 house, of casks of claret brought up into the dining-room, 

 the door locked, and the key thrown out of the window ? 

 With such antecedents to sustain me, I ought to be able to 

 hold my own against the staunchest toper in Iceland ! So, 

 with a devil glittering in my left eye, I winked defiance right 

 and left, and away we went at it again for another five-and- 

 forty minutes. At last their fire slackened : I had partially 

 quelled both the Governor and the Rector, and still survived. 

 It is true I did not feel comfortable ; but it was in the neigh- 

 bourhood, of my waistcoat, not my head, I suffered. "I am 

 not well, but I will not out," I soliloquized, with Lepidus 1 — 

 " £09 [lot, to iTTepov" I would have added, had I dared. 

 Still the neck of the banquet was broken — Fitzgerald's chair 

 was not yet empty, — could we hold but perhaps a quarter 

 of an hour longer, our reputation was established ; guess 

 then my horror, when the Icelandic Doctor, shouting his 

 favourite dogma, by way of battle cry, " Si trigintis guttis, 

 morbum curare velis, erras," gave the signal for an unex- 

 pected onslaught, and the twenty guests poured down on 

 me in succession. I really thought I should have run away 



1 Antony and Cleopatra. 



