After that Sir Damask drank his wine in silence.
"You remember that claret, my lord ?" said Dick, thinking that some little compensation was due to him for what had been said about the champagne.
But Lord Mongrober's dinner had not yet had the effect of mollifying the man sufficiently for Dick's purposes.

"Oh, yes, I remember the wine.

You call it '57, don't you ?" "And it is '57;--'57, Leoville." "Very likely,--very likely.

If it hadn't been heated before the fire--" "It hasn't been near the fire," said Dick.
"Or put into a hot decanter--" "Nothing of the kind." "Or treated after some other damnable fashion, it would be very good wine, I dare say." "You are hard to please, my lord, to-day," said Dick, who was put beyond his bearing.
"What is a man to say?
If you will talk about your wine, I can only tell you what I think.

Any man may get good wine,--that is if he can afford to pay the price,--but it isn't one out of ten who knows how to put it on the table." Dick felt this to be very hard.