Recent events will show how correct
they were in their forecasts.
I liked the society of these shrewd, practical men, for from being
so much with the French judges, I had become accustomed to
associating with men double or treble my own age. There was
nothing corresponding to the gaiete francaise about them, though
at times a ponderous playfulness marked their lighter moments, and
flashes of elephantine jocularity enlivened the proceedings of the
Club. I picked up some useful items of knowledge from them, for I
regret to admit that up to that time I had no idea what a bill of
lading was, or a ship's manifest; after a while, even such cryptic
expressions, too, as f.o.b. and c.i.f. ceased to have any
mysteries for me. Let the inexperienced beware of "Swedish Punch,"
a sickly, highly-scented preparation of arrack. I do not speak
from personal experience, for I detest the sweet, cloying stuff;
but it occasionally fell to my lot to guide down-stairs the
uncertain footsteps of some ventripotent Kommerzien-Rath, or even
of Mr. Over-Inspector of Railways himself, both temporarily
incapacitated by injudicious indulgence in Swedish Punch.
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