RECOLLEQTIONS, 1862-65. 51 



get, he took the bottle and filled up a quart of his 

 glass and degusted it " en connoisseur," and told me 

 it is very good, but mine I have home is better ! it is 

 older ! I felt like telling him, as I heard once a French 

 priest telling a man who had brought hime some fowls 

 from a friend. He, the priest, had given that man a 

 bottle of wine and something to eat, as it is the custom 

 in the country. When he had taken a glass or two of 

 that wine, the priest asked him, how do you like my 

 wine ? The fellow seemed to me as if he knew some- 

 thing about wine, or at least he had pretensions. He 

 said, " Monsieur Le Cure," it is very good, but if it 

 was one year older, it would be much better ; it was 

 good wine, but the fellow wanted to show his knowl- 

 edge of wines, but the priest got so much vexed of that 

 man's impudence that he took the bottle, corked it 

 again, and said to that churl, holding the bottle under 

 his nose, you will coine next year, it shall be better 

 now ! go home. I did not do like the priest, but I told 

 him the story ; he and his wife laughed heartily. That 

 man and his wife were well-bred people, and when he told 

 me his wine was better, because he had paid $30 per 

 case, and mine only cost me about fifty cents a bottle. I 

 bought mine by the cask of sixty gallons ; then I asked 

 him if he found his wine $2 a bottle better than mine ; 

 his wife said cur's is not fifty cents better, the differ- 

 ence was in the social standing of that gentleman, he 



