Show wines wine and tess tea his wines were curious and valuable most of them had bad been accumulated at sales made by foreign ministers when breaking up tip their households to return from washington to their own countries or at sales bales made by those whose knowledge and taste had enabled them to have the best beet among them were three bottles ales each having hung bung on its neck in the senators handwriting the fOU following Owin malaga years old these worn r served reserved from the sale and sent to his invalid lid sister sirs mrs hastings in california his hia teas he had accumulated somewhat in in the same way ire he would order through his hia friends in the east india trado trade the smallest possible original rial packets of kinds not known to commerce the difficulty of getting which was far beyond their cost and traveling friends in the diplomatic service would send him little packets of the rare and strange teas that they found abroad at the famous li dinners he gave the joint high commis commission ho be served them with the famous Manda mandarin rift tea which like the wine of tokay is regarded as an imperial present the countess do de grey recognized it she had tasted it in bucking buckingham hap palace when ben the queen entertained royal personages it had biad been brought to mr sumner simmer by mr air fox assistant secretary of the navy who obtained it in russia when he visited that country with our fleet of ironclads iron cosmopolitan |