Pagina 148 van 1118

There was no reply to be made to this, and the father was obliged

to taste the wine. All the guests were loud in its praise, except

the doctor, who had kept silence. "Eh! doctor," asked Don

Roderick, "what think you of it?"

"I think," replied the doctor, withdrawing his ruddy and shining

nose from the glass, "that this is the Olivares of wines: there

is not a liquor resembling it in all the twenty-two kingdoms of

the king our master, whom God protect! I maintain that the

dinners of the most illustrious Signor Don Roderick exceed the

suppers of Heliogabalus, and that scarcity is banished for ever

from this palace, where reigns a perpetual and splendid

abundance."

"Well said! bravo! bravo!" exclaimed with one voice the guests;

but the word scarcity, which the doctor had accidentally uttered,

suggested a new and painful subject. All spoke at once:-"There is

no famine," said one, "it is the speculators who--"

"And the bakers, who conceal the grain. Hang them!"