The door opened by a few inches at this moment and a wrinkled pippin of a head was pushed in. A pair of little bright eyes surveyed the company and then the door was thrust wide open and M. Poizat stepped lightly in. Harry Rames rose and shook hands with the little Frenchman. Colonel Challoner stroked his white moustache. "You were present to-night?" said Rames. "What a difference, eh?" "Yes, I was proud," M. Poizat returned. "But always I waited for some little word--some little word which did not come." "One always forgets an important point and generally the most important. It is the experience of all speakers," said Rames. He turned to the table. "I must introduce to you M. Poizat, and if ever your voices are hoarse in Ludsey, please ask for Lungatine." Rames drew a chair to the table, pressed M. Poizat into it, and filled for him a glass of champagne. The little man was delighted. He drank Captain Rames's health, he bowed to the company; and his hand was arrested in mid-air, holding the wine-glass by its stem. Colonel Challoner was gazing fixedly across the table at him. A look of trouble took all the merriment out of M. Poizat's face. "I have seen you before, M. Poizat," said Colonel Challoner. Cynthia began to think that the colonel had a mania for recognizing people. "I am _Mr_. Poizat, an Englishman," the little confectioner answered hurriedly. "Naturalized," said the colonel. "It is true," said M. Poizat reluctantly. "If you had only said that last night," thought Harry Rames. "You would have got your advertisement, my friend." But he said not a word aloud, and M. Poizat continued: "But it was a long time ago. And all the years since I have spent in Ludsey." Colonel Challoner shook his head. "It was not in Ludsey that I saw you. For I was never here in my life before." M. Poizat shrugged his shoulders. "We have sat opposite to one another in a train perhaps. We have run against one another in the traffic of a London street." "No, it was on some occasion more important. I do not forget a face." "Nor I," said M. Poizat. "And I have never seen yours, sir, until this moment;" and though he spoke with spirit his uneasiness was apparent to every one at that table. Colonel Challoner sat back in his chair and let the subject drop. But he was not satisfied. He was even annoyed at his failure to identify the Frenchman, and he sat relentlessly revolving in his mind the changing scenes of his life. Meanwhile the talk drifted back to by-gone elections and this or that great night when some famous statesman was brought into the town and never allowed to speak one audible word. Mr. Arnall mentioned one whose name resounded through England.