What's the use," he continued,
"of my calling the boy Ernest, and getting him christened in water
from the Jordan, if his own father does not know a cock from a hen
lobster?"
This cut me too, for I felt that till that moment I had not so
much as known that there were cocks and hens among lobsters, but had
vaguely thought that in the matter of matrimony they were even as
the angels in heaven, and grew up almost spontaneously from rocks
and seaweed.
Before the next course was over Mr. Pontifex had recovered his
temper, and from that time to the end of the evening he was at his
best. He told us all about the water from the Jordan; how it had
been brought by Dr. Jones along with some stone jars of water from the
Rhine, the Rhone, the Elbe, and the Danube, and what trouble he had
had with them at the Custom Houses, and how the intention had been
to make punch with waters from all the greatest rivers in Europe;
and how he, Mr. Pontifex, had saved the Jordan water from going into
the bowl, etc., etc. "No, no, no," he continued, "it wouldn't have
done at all, you know; very profane idea; so we each took a pint
bottle of it home with us, and the punch was much better without it.
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