"At this point the wine made its appearance, and--if you'll believe me--it was genuine: Perrier-Jouet, '96. A little while on the ice might have improved it, but we gave it no time. The oysters arrived too; but they were tired, I think. Something was wrong with them, anyhow. . . . Then--as I seem to remember having told you--Farrell put down three glasses of champagne on an empty stomach." "You did mention it," said I; "somewhere in the dim and distant past." "For my part," went on Jimmy seriously, "my potations were moderate. After trying the first oyster, I was sober enough to let the others alone. Then came on the alleged mussel-soup. I tried it and laid down my spoon. . . . Do you happen to know, Otty, which develops the quicker typhoid or ptomaine? and if they are, by any chance, mutually exclusive? Farrell will like to know. "He swallowed it all. But when he had done he looked full in the eyes and said in a loud, unfaltering voice, 'This restarong is no longer what it was.' "'The champagne is, and better,' I consoled him. "'Well, what do you say now,' he asked,' to a pig's trotter farced with pimento? _That_ sounds appetising, at any rate.' "I think it was at this point, accurately, that I began to suspect him of having exceeded or of being on the verge of excess. But the suspicion no sooner crossed my mind than he set it at rest by getting up and walking across the room to his great-coat, on the rack by the door. His gait was perfectly steady. He drew certain articles from the pockets, returned with them, and laid them on the table: a cigar-case, a mysterious round box of white metal--sort of box you buy 'Blanco' in--and another round object concealed in a crushed paper-bag. He opened the first. "'Have a cigar,' he invited me. 'They smoke between the courses in this place--proper thing to do.' "'Sanitary precaution,' I suggested. 'I'll be content with a cigarette for the present. What are your other disinfectants?' "He laughed, very suddenly and violently. 'Disinfectants?' he chortled; 'that's a good 'un! They're exhibits, my dear sir--pardon-liberty-calling-you-Dear-sir. Stewards collected a dozen, these infernal machines--' "'There's no need to shout,' said I. No, Otty I was sober. . . . But I looked around and it struck me that the faces at the near tables were bright, and white, and curiously distinct in the cigarette-smoke. "'I am not shouting,' Farrell protested: but he was, and at that moment. 'Disinfectants? That box, there--there's a bottle inside-- sulphuretted hydrogen. T'other joker's a firework of sorts. I brought 'em along for evidence. . . . Wha's that?' He jerked himself bolt upright, staring at a dish the waiter held under his nose. "'It's the _tete de veau en spaghetti_ you ordered, sir,' said Giovanni. "'Did I? I don't remember it. Do _you_ remember my ordering tait-de-whatever it calls itself?' he asked me earnestly. "Well, I couldn't, and I said so.