448 THE UNFORTUNATE LOVER. 



" What's the matter ? What mistake is it ?" asked I, after a mo" 

 merit's hesitation. My two friends were speechless all the time. They 

 did nothing but gaze with amazement at the half-petrified trio. 



"The Champagne, Sir," said Boniface. 



" The vinegar, Sir," said the wine merchant, emphatically. Both 

 speakers addressed their discourse to- me. 



" What vinegar ?" said I, somewhat tartly. 



"Gracious, gentlemen,'' said the waiter, who all this while was si- 

 lent, " you have by mistake got a bottle of vinegar instead of Cham- 

 pagne.'' 



To do justice to the scene which followed, the reader must stretch 

 his imagination to the utmost. 



My friends and self exchanged looks with each other. For some 

 time we were so confounded by the announcement as to be unable to 

 speak. I recovered myself first. "Explain yourselves'."' said I, 

 somewhat angrily. 



With great difficulty, and after interspersing their explanali'jns 

 with a legion of " beg your pardons'' and " am very sorry for the 

 mistake," from each and all of the blockheads, they managed to make 

 us understand that. Champagne being a species of wine which was 

 seldom called for, the landlord had not a bottle in the house at the 

 time, — that the waiter was naturally anxious to conceal the paucity of 

 mine host's supplies, and that with that intent he ran with breathless 

 haste to the wine-merchant's shop to get a bottle of Champagne for 

 us, — that the wine-merchant himself being out at the time the boy 

 who kept the shop, which boy was quite " raw," being a new im- 

 portation from the mountains, gave John a bottle of vinegar in- 

 stead of Champagne, which bottle the waiter placed before us in a 

 twinkling, — that the wine-merchant on his return discovered the 

 blunder which had been committed, and ran that instant and apprized 

 Boniface of it, — and that as the business and character of both, waiter 

 and all, were likely to suff"er from the circumstance, they had all 

 three resolved to come and beg our pardons, and to implore us 

 not to let the thing be known. 



My tongue loosed for once. Addressing myself to Boniface, I 

 told him it was with him as landlord of the Flying Eagle I had to 

 do: and accordingly I abused him in most unmeasured terms. Bo- 

 niface shifted the blame from his own shoulders to those of the wait- 

 er, whom he scolded most unmercifully, while poor John reproach- 

 ed, as he best could, the wine-merchant for leaving ignorant boys in 

 the shop in his absei.ce. In short, thei-e was nothing but downright 

 abuse going among us ; while the little rogue of a shop-boy who had 

 done all the mischief escaped, like Cowper's thief in the "lashing af- 

 fair, with perfect impunity. 



The whole u.atter spunked out that evening, and before next 

 day the town, from one end to the other, rang with it. If the then 

 current report may be credited many of the lieges seriously hurt 

 themselves from the immoderate fits of laughter it occasioned. And, 

 to crown the untowardness of the affair, the Provincial paper — one 

 of the most despicable and unprincipled and stupid prints extant — 

 narrated all the circumstances in its next publication. It wickedly 



