"I want to see what Mr. Hodges is talking about. Never saw
a truffle that I know of." Here he turned the bits of raw rubber
over with his fork. "No. Take it away. Guess I'll pass. Hog saw it
first; he can have it."
Hodges's face flushed, then he joined in the laugh. The Chicago
man was too valuable a would-be subscriber to quarrel with. And,
then, how impossible to expect a person brought up as Mason had
been to understand the ordinary refinements of civilization.
"Rough diamond, Mason--Good fellow. Backbone of our country,"
Hodges whispered to the Colonel, who was sore from the strain of
repressed hilarity. "A little coarse now and then--but that comes
of his early life, no doubt."
Hodges waited his chance and again launched out; this time it was
upon the various kinds of wines his cellar contained--their cost--
who had approved of them--how impossible it was to duplicate some
of them, especially some Johannesburg of '74.
"Forty-two dollars a bottle--not pressed in the ordinary way--just
the weight of the grapes in the basket in which they are gathered
in the vineyard, and what naturally drips through is caught and
put aside," etc.
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