Chapter 65

“Come,” he said at length, turning towards a table of richly enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the foreground of the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be Johannisberger. “Come,” he said, abruptly, “let us drink! It is early—but let us drink. It is _indeed_ early,” he continued, musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hamm…