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Gelstrap told the other servants afterwards that his master's language had made his backbone curdle. The moment, however, that he heard the word "water," he saw his way again, and flew to the pantry. Before his master had well noted his absence he returned with a little sponge and a basin, and had begun sopping up the waters of the Jordan as though they had been a common slop.
On more than one occasion when his master had gone out and left his keys accidentally behind him, as he sometimes did, Gelstrap had submitted the bottle to all the tests he could venture upon, but it was so carefully sealed that wisdom remained quite shut out from that entrance at which he would have welcomed her most gladly and indeed from all other entrances, for he could make out nothing at all.
"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 an heap upon the cellar floor and rebuke him.
He rang the bell for the butler. "Gelstrap," he said solemnly, "I want to go down into the cellar." Then Gelstrap preceded him with a candle, and he went into the inner vault where he kept his choicest wines.
I had a narrow escape with mine, though, the other day; I fell over a hamper in the cellar, when I was getting it up to bring to Battersby, and if I had not taken the greatest care the bottle would certainly have been broken, but I saved it." And Gelstrap was standing behind his chair all the time!
"I'll filter it, Sir," said Gelstrap meekly. "It'll come quite clean." Mr Pontifex saw hope in this suggestion, which was shortly carried out by the help of a piece of blotting paper and a funnel, under his own eyes. Eventually it was found that half a pint was saved, and this was held to be sufficient. Then he made preparations for a visit to Battersby.
This was the object of Mr Pontifex's search. Gelstrap had often pondered over this bottle. It had been placed there by Mr Pontifex himself about a dozen years previously, on his return from a visit to his friend the celebrated traveller Dr Jones but there was no tablet above the bin which might give a clue to the nature of its contents.
It was a fine sight to see him tucking his napkin under his rosy old gills, and letting it fall over his capacious waistcoat while the high light from the chandelier danced about the bump of benevolence on his bald old head like a star of Bethlehem. The soup was real turtle; the old gentleman was evidently well pleased and he was beginning to come out. Gelstrap stood behind his master's chair.
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.
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