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THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION
So we joined forces, and of evenings we would sit on the rooftop of
his bungalow, and while the sun set through the sherry-brown dust
cloud that broods over Central India throughout the dry season,
would listen to the vain male peacock's scream, and watched the
Rikki-tikki-tavis-or mongooses, or mongeese, or whatever the hell
they choose to call those trim little animals that would sooner fight
snakes than live-scuttling about their mongoosing business among
the bushes in the garden. And we would sip various tall things, includ–
ing-on Washington's birthday of course-a quartet of Champagne
Burra-Pegs, and he would recount to us certain toothsome bits of
"under-the-punkah" tales about Maharajahs and people; and how,
actually, the young new one we'd just met preferred one wife to the
regiment of
400
or so his dad had thoughtfully left him!
Duplicating our experience we suggest: the largest chilled goblet
in sight, at least 14 oz, and
16
oz is better. Into this turn
2
jiggers of
good well-chilled cognac, drop in a lump of sugar doused with An–
gostura, fill up with chilled dry champagne and garnish with a spiral
of green lime peel.
CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL No. II, which with MoDESTLY DoWN–
CAST LASH WE ADMIT Is an ORIGINATION of OuR OWN,
&
which
WE
CHRISTENED the "JIMMIE RoosEVELT"
Last spring we had the pleasure of turning our house into an oasis,
between planes, for Colonel Jimmie Roosevelt and Grant Mason of
the Civil Aeronautics Commission. No citizen-Republican, Demo–
crat, Socialist, Townsendite, or any other political breed, can meet
Jimmie and not at once be taken with his smile, his sense of humour
and affable charm.
It
was warmish, and being a sort of Nephew-in–
Law of Paul Garrett, dean of all American Vintners, and present
"father" of Virginia Dare, we brought out
2
chilled bottles of Gar–
rett Champagne, and created this one.
Fill a big
16
oz
thin
crystal goblet with finely cracked ice.
In
the
diametrical center of this frosty mass went a lump of sugar well
saturated with Angostura, then
2
jiggers of good French cognac, then
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