An unsteady person, leaning back in his chair to murmur swift compliments to a woman at another table, suddenly sprawled out upon the floor. He scrambled to his feet, and, turning to the escort of the woman, heatedly blamed him for the accident. They exchanged a series of tense, bitter insults, which spatted back and forth between them like pellets. People arose from their chairs and stretched their necks. The musicians stood in a body, their faces turned with expressions of keen excitement toward this quarrel, but their fingers still twinkling over their instruments, sending into the middle of this turmoil the passionate, mad, Spanish music. The proprietor of the place came in agitation and plunged headlong into the argument, where he thereafter appeared as a frantic creature harried to the point of insanity, for they buried him at once in long, vociferous threats, explanations, charges, every form of declamation known to their voices. The music, the noise of the galloping horses, the voices of the brawlers, gave the whole thing the quality of war. There were two men in the _cafe_ who seemed to be tranquil. Hollanden carefully stacked one lump of sugar upon another in the middle of his saucer and poured cognac over them. He touched a match to the cognac and the blue and yellow flames eddied in the saucer. "I wonder what those two fools are bellowing at?" he said, turning about irritably. "Hanged if I know!" muttered Hawker in reply. "This place makes me weary, anyhow. Hear the blooming din!" "What's the matter?" said Hollanden. "You used to say this was the one natural, the one truly Bohemian, resort in the city. You swore by it." "Well, I don't like it so much any more." "Ho!" cried Hollanden, "you're getting correct--that's it exactly. You will become one of these intensely---- Look, Billie, the little one is going to punch him!" "No, he isn't. They never do," said Hawker morosely. "Why did you bring me here to-night, Hollie?" "I? I bring you? Good heavens, I came as a concession to you! What are you talking about?--Hi! the little one is going to punch him, sure!" He gave the scene his undivided attention for a moment; then he turned again: "You will become correct. I know you will. I have been watching. You are about to achieve a respectability that will make a stone saint blush for himself. What's the matter with you? You act as if you thought falling in love with a girl was a most extraordinary circumstance.--I wish they would put those people out.--Of course I know that you---- There! The little one has swiped at him at last!"