Ha! ha! Now if I could persuade you, Sir Austin, as you do not take wine before dinner, some day to favour me with your company at my little country cottage I have a wine there--the fellow to that--I think you would, I do think you would"-- Mr.
Thompson meant to say, he thought his client would arrive at something of a similar jocund contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that inspirited lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual promise into "highly approve." Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour mouth comically compressed.
It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port, and Thompson after, were two different men.

To indoctrinate him now was too late: it was perhaps the time to make the positive use of him he wanted.
He pencilled on a handy slip of paper: "Two prongs of a fork; the World stuck between them--Port and the Palate: 'Tis one which fails first--Down goes World;" and again the hieroglyph--"Port-spectacles." He said, "I shall gladly accompany you this evening, Thompson," words that transfigured the delighted lawyer, and ensigned the skeleton of a great Aphorism to his pocket, there to gather flesh and form, with numberless others in a like condition.
"I came to visit my lawyer," he said to himself.

"I think I have been dealing with The World in epitome!".