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Chapter 9. THE DINNER PARTY
They sat down to an island dinner, remarkable for its variety and
excellence; turtle soup and steak, fish, fowls, a sucking pig, a
cocoanut salad, and sprouting cocoanut roasted for dessert. Not a tin
had been opened; and save for the oil and vinegar in the salad, and some
green spears of onion which Attwater cultivated and plucked with his own
hand, not even the condiments were European. Sherry, hock, and claret
succeeded each other, and the Farallone champagne brought up the rear
with the dessert.
It was plain that, like so many of the extremely religious in the
days before teetotalism, Attwater had a dash of the epicure. For such
characters it is softening to eat well; doubly so to have designed and
had prepared an excellent meal for others; and the manners of their host
were agreeably mollified in consequence.
A cat of huge growth sat on his shoulders purring, and occasionally,
with a deft paw, capturing a morsel in the air. To a cat he might be
likened himself, as he lolled at the head of his table, dealing
out attentions and innuendoes, and using the velvet and the claw
indifferently. And both Huish and the captain fell progressively under
the charm of his hospitable freedom.
Over the third guest, the incidents of the dinner may be said to have
passed for long unheeded. Herrick accepted all that was offered him, ate
and drank without tasting, and heard without comprehension. His mind
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