This seemed good advice, because if their hosts were too drunk too soon they might get tired of the entertainment; and Sylvia proposed an adjournment to eat, though she had little enough appetite. As a matter of fact, the men wanted to drink vodka when supper was proposed, and not merely to drink it themselves, but to make Sylvia and the other girl keep them company glass by glass. In Sylvia's condition to drink vodka would have been to drink liquid fire, and she managed to plead thirst with such effect that the count benevolently ordered twenty-four bottles of champagne to be brought immediately for her to quench it. The other girl was full of admiration for Sylvia's strategy; if the worst came to the worst, they would have earned seventy-five francs each and could boast of a successful evening. Sylvia, however, wanted a hundred and fifty francs for herself, and invoking the little red devil she showed a way of breaking a bottle in half by filling it with hot water, saturating a string in methylated spirits, tying the string round the bottle, setting light to it, and afterward tapping the bottle gently with a knife until it broke. The count was delighted with this trick, but thought, as Sylvia hoped he would think, that the trick would be much better if practised on an unopened bottle of champagne. In this way twenty-six bottles were broken in childish rage by the count, because the trick only worked with the help of hot water. He was by now in a state of drunken obstinacy, and, being determined to show the superiority of the human mind over matter, he ordered twenty-four more bottles of champagne, as a Roman emperor might have ordered two dozen slaves to test an empirical method of execution. By a fluke he managed to succeed with the twenty-fourth bottle, and having by now gathered round him an audience, he challenged the onlookers to repeat the trick. Other women were anxious for their hosts to excel, particularly with such profit to themselves; soon at every table in the cabaret champagne-bottles were being cracked like eggs. The count was afraid that there might not be enough wine left to carry them through the evening, and ordered another two dozen bottles to be held in reserve for his table. Sylvia, though she was feeling horribly ill by now, was nevertheless at peace, for she had earned her fare back to England. Unluckily, she could not quit the table and go home, because, unless she waited until three, she would not be paid her commission on the champagne. She felt herself receding from the noise of breaking glass all round her, and thought she was going to faint, but with an effort she gathered the noise round her again and tried to believe that the room still existed. She seemed to be catching hold of the great chandelier that hung from the middle of the ceiling, and fancied that it was only her will and courage to maintain her hold that was keeping the cabaret and everybody in it from destruction.