And now the mystery was to be solved. But alas! it seemed as
though the last chance of securing even a sip of the contents was to
be removed for ever, for Mr. Pontifex took the bottle into his own
hands and held it up to the light after carefully examining the
seal. He smiled and left the bin with the bottle in his hands.
Then came a catastrophe. He stumbled over an empty hamper; there was
the sound of a fall- a smash of broken glass, and in an instant the
cellar floor was covered with the liquid that had been preserved so
carefully for so many years.
With his usual presence of mind Mr. Pontifex gasped out a month's
warning to Gelstrap. Then he got up, and stamped as Theobald had
done when Christina had wanted not to order his dinner.
"It's water from the Jordan," he exclaimed furiously, "which I
have been saving for the baptism of my eldest grandson. Damn you,
Gelstrap, how dare you be so infernally careless as to leave that
hamper littering about the cellar?"
I wonder the water of the sacred stream did not stand upright as a
heap upon the cellar floor and rebuke him. Gelstrap told the other
servants afterwards that his master's language had made his backbone
curdle.
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