Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/27

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PORT

least nine times in this glorious reign of hers, she could have filled the dungeoned cellars of Windsor with more illustrious prisoners than the Tudors; just as the secret of her weakness—if she have any—consists in that she didn't do it. Oh, the pity of it! If you may believe your society prints, she drinks nothing but whisky-and-water and a little dry champagne. Yet, at the last, her subjects and their descendants shall softly close their eyes, and drink in Jubilee Port the memory of her in whose honour it is named. So shall their loyalty stay unimpeached and unimpeachable. And yet it is hard to think of what might have been—and is not. One statue less, and—well, well! The Doctor was right; and Port is, after all, the drink of—not Boys, not Heroes, not even Empresses and Queens, but—Men.

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