"I base my claim to your sympathetic credence, McAllister, upon the impregnable rock of universally accepted fact that Tomlinson is a highfalutin ass. I see that you agree. Very good, then; I proceed. In the first place, you must know that our anemic friend decided last spring that the state of his health required a trip to Paris. He therefore went--alone. The reason is obvious. Who should he fall in with at the Hotel Continental but a gentleman named Buncomb--Colonel C. T. P. Buncomb, a person with a bullet-hole in the middle of his forehead, who claimed to belong to a most exclusive Southern family in Savannah. Incidentally he'd been in command of a Georgia regiment in the Civil War and had been knocked in the head at Gettysburg--one of those big, flabby fellows with white hair. If all Tomlinson says about his capacity to chew Black Strap and absorb rum is accurate, I reckon the Colonel was right up to weight and could qualify as an F. F. V. He knew everybody and everything in Paris; passed up our friend right along the Faubourg Saint Germain; and introduced him to a lot of duchesses and countesses--that is, Tomlinson _says_ they were. Can't you see 'em, swaggerin' down the Champs-Élysées arm in arm? In addition, he took our mournful acquaintance to all the _cafés chantants_ and students' balls, and gave him sure things on the races. Oh, that Colonel must have been a regular doodle-bug! "In due course Tomlinson gathered that his new friend was a mining expert taking a short vacation and just blowing in an extra half million or so. He believed it. You see, he had never met any of them at the Waldorf at home. He was also introduced to a young man in the same line of business, named Larry Summerdale, who seemed to have plenty of money, and was likewise _au fait_ with the aristocracy.