"I know! Sir Henry Trevor! He's a blackguard!" "I'm afraid he's not all that he might be, but that has only begun to dawn upon me lately. At one time he and I were intimate. When I was last in Paris I met him one day on the Boulevard. Although, somehow, we'd drifted apart; our paths in life lay in different directions; still I was very glad to see him, and we chummed up at once. He was living in Paris; had an apartment on the Champs Elysée, at the top there, near the Arch. He knew everybody; took me about; I had a royal time. One night I dined with him in his rooms, he and I alone together. Now I'm reluctant to make a direct charge, because I've no proof to offer, but I wondered then, and I've wondered still more since, if he hadn't done something to his wine." "How--done something?" "You know I'm an abstemious man, I don't care for wine; as a rule I drink nothing at meals, not even water. But on an occasion like that it was different. I had one glass of champagne, one of those small tumblers; when the servant began to fill it up I stopped him; not that there was anything wrong with the champagne, I feel sure there wasn't. After dinner, with our fruit, we had some port; I wanted neither the port nor the fruit, but Trevor insisted. The servant had left the room; he himself took a bottle out of a cupboard; he laid it in a cradle; he drew the cork; you know the fuss some men make about drawing a cork of what they allege is a remarkable bottle of wine. He made all that fuss, he insisted upon my sampling it; of course after all the business he had gone through, I had no option; he poured me out a glassful. Now I believe that wine was not all he pretended." "What makes you think it?" "As soon as I tasted it I didn't like it, I told him so. He said I should change my opinion by the time I'd finished the glass; so--merely to get rid of it--I finished the glass in a hurry, and I liked it less than ever." "How did it affect you?" "It upset me; I was conscious that I was not in a condition in which I should care to do business." "Did you say anything?" "I told him that I thought the wine had a very funny taste; but he only laughed and said it was evident that I was no judge of port." "You only had one glass?" "One only; nothing short of physical force would have induced me to touch another drop." "Then what did you do?" "We went into the other room, his sitting-room. He took out an autograph album, it seemed that he collected autographs; though that was the first I'd heard of it. He began to talk about imitating people's handwriting, how good some were at it. Now it's a fact that I've always had an unfortunate facility for imitating handwriting." "It is, as you say, an unfortunate facility; one not overmuch to be desired."