human
What's the matter? asked Vendale.
gpt
Anything wrong?
human
I should wish to mention one thing, answered Joey.
gpt
Young Mr. Vendale, I have never set myself up for a prophet.
human
Who ever said you did?
gpt
No prophet, as far as I've heard I tell of that profession, proceeded Joey,
human
concluded Joey, pointing attention to a special passage in the report, with a forefinger which appeared to be in process of taking in through the pores nothing more remarkable than dirt.
gpt
It's foreign to my nature to crow over the house I serve, but I feel it a kind of solemn duty to ask you to read that.
human
Note, respecting the Swiss champagne. An irregularity has been discovered in the last consignment received from the firm of Defresnier and Co. Vendale stopped, and referred to a memorandum-book by his side.
gpt
That was in Mr. Wilding's time, he said.
human
The vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole of it. The Swiss champagne has done very well, hasn't it?
gpt
I don't say it's done badly, answered the Cellarman.
human
It may have got sick in our customers' bins, or it may have bust in our customers' hands. But I don't say it's done badly with us.
gpt
We find the number of the cases to be quite correct by the books. But six of them, which present a slight difference from the rest in the brand, have been opened, and have been found to contain a red wine instead of champagne. The similarity in the brands, we suppose, caused a mistake to be made in sending the consignment from Neuchatel. The error has not been found to extend beyond six cases.
human
Is that all!
gpt
I'm glad to see you take it easy, sir, he said.
human
Whatever happens, it will be always a comfort to you to remember that you took it easy at first. Sometimes one mistake leads to another. A man drops a bit of orange-peel on the pavement by mistake, and another man treads on it by mistake, and there's a job at the hospital, and a party crippled for life. I'm glad you take it easy, sir. In Pebbleson Nephew's time we shouldn't have taken it easy till we had seen the end of it. Without desiring to crow over the house, young Mr. Vendale, I wish you well through it. No offence, sir, said the Cellarman, opening the door to go out, and looking in again ominously before he shut it.
gpt
I'm muddled and molloncolly, I grant you. But I'm an old servant of Pebbleson Nephew, and I wish you well through them six cases of red wine.
human
I may as well send a line to Defresnier and Company, he thought,