In a moment his cheeks became red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart.

Was he to be treated in this way by a man on whose behalf,--with no thought of his own comfort or pleasure,--he had made this long and abominable journey?
Might it not be well for him to leave the house without seeing Mr.
Kennedy at all?
Then he remembered that he had heard it whispered that the man had become bewildered in his mind.

He relented, therefore, and condescended to eat his dinner.
A very poor dinner it was.

There was a morsel of flabby white fish, as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender.

There was some very hot sherry, but not much of it.