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. And there was a bottle of
claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the
matter of wine, persisted in declining to have anything to do with
it after the first attempt. The gloomy old servant, who stuck to him
during the repast, persisted in offering it, as though the credit of
the hospitality of Loughlinter depended on it. There are so many men
by whom the _tenuis ratio saporum_ has not been achieved, that the
Caleb Balderstones of those houses in which plenty does not flow
are almost justified in hoping that goblets of Gladstone may pass
current. Phineas Finn was not a martyr to eating or drinking.
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