meanwhile, having come to the conclusion that the joke had lasted long enough, picked up the eye-glasses, dropped them like an alms into the hat, and then fled so as to escape being thanked. Dinner had begun. Lafcadio seated himself at a table for two, next the glass door on the right-hand side of the aisle; the place opposite him was empty; on the left side of the gangway, in the same row as himself, the widow and her daughter were sitting at a table for four, two seats of which were unoccupied. “What mortal dullness exudes from such places as this!” said Lafcadio to himself, as his listless glance slipped from one to another of the diners, without finding a face on which to dwell. “Herds of cattle going through life as if it were a monotonous grind, instead of the entertainment which it is--or which it might be. How badly dressed they are! But oh! how much uglier they would be if they were naked! I shall certainly expire before dessert, if I don’t order some champagne.” Here the professor entered. He had apparently just been washing his hands, which had been dirtied by his hunt, and was examining his nails. A waiter motioned him to sit down beside Lafcadio. The man with the wine-list was passing from table to table. Lafcadio, without saying a word, pointed out a Montebello Grand Crémant at twenty francs, while Monsieur Defouqueblize ordered a bottle of St. Galmier. He was holding his pince-nez between his finger and thumb, breathing gently on the glasses and then wiping them with the corner of his napkin. Lafcadio watched him curiously and wondered at his mole’s eyes blinking under their swollen eyelids. “Fortunately he doesn’t know it was I who gave him back his eyesight. If he begins to thank me, I shall take myself off on the spot.” The waiter came back with the St. Galmier and the champagne; he first uncorked the latter and put it down between the two diners. The bottle was no sooner on the table than Defouqueblize seized hold of it without noticing which one it was, poured out a glassful and swallowed it at one gulp. The waiter was going to interfere but Lafcadio stopped him with a laugh. “Oh! what on earth is this stuff?” cried Defouqueblize with a frightful grimace. “This gentleman’s Montebello,” replied the waiter with dignity. “_This_ is your St. Galmier! Here!” He put down the second bottle. “I’m extremely sorry, Sir.... My eyesight is so bad.... Really, I’m overcome with....” “You would greatly oblige me, Sir,” interrupted Lafcadio, “by not apologising--and even by accepting another glass--if the first was to your taste, that is.”