"Ah," exclaimed young St. Maur. "Here is François and supper." Upon this the long, lean man who had admitted us said, "Monsieur is served. I shall carry in the wine." And he added, to me, "Monsieur may have let fall his handkerchief," and, so saying, he returned it, lying on a salver. Upon this the Duke and the rest of them laughed outright, but made haste to explain at once. "François," said Des Illes, "will you never be old enough to acquire a little virtue? My dear M. Michel, we have had our good thief François with us all these days, ever since that adventure in the cave. He has money in bank, but to steal a handkerchief now and then he cannot resist. I must say, he always returns it." "Monsieur will have his little jest," said François. "The supper waits." With this he left us. "What a delightful character!" said Pierce. "And did he really pick my friend’s pocket?" "Assuredly," said the Duke. "For many years he used now and then to ask a holiday. He commonly came back rather forlorn, and apt for a while to keep the house and be shy of gendarmes. It was our belief that he went off to get a little amusement in his old fashion. I suspect that he got into serious trouble once, but Des Illes is secretive." "And how old is he?" said I. "That no man knows," returned our host, rising. "To be asked his age is the one thing on earth known to annoy him. He says time is the only thief without honor among other thieves." "Queer, that," said I, as our host rose. "The old have commonly a strange pride in their age." "I have none," laughed the Duke. "This way," said Des Illes, and we followed him into a pretty dining-room, and sat down below a half-dozen canvases of men and women of the days of the Regency. It was a delightful little supper, with clarets of amazing age and in perfect condition. Toward the close, Des Illes retired for a few minutes to add the last charm to what the younger St. Maur called the toilette of the salad. When we had praised it and disposed of it, Des Illes said to me: "Monsieur, our good fortune has brought you here to-night, on the evening when once in each year we sup together in the mourning costume which may have excited your curiosity." To this we both confessed, and Des Illes added: "On this day we, who are among the few who remember the Terror, meet because it is January the twenty-first. On this day died Louis Sixteenth. You will join us, I trust, in a glass of older wine in remembrance of our dead King." Thus speaking, he rose and himself took from the mantel-shelf a bottle. "It is of the vintage of 1793, an old Burgundy. Its name I do not know, but, as you see, each bottle was marked by my father with a black ribbon."