As I didn't know what, in the general reversal of things, might be the punishment here for threatening to retaliate on a waiter who proposed to punch one's head, and I wanted to finish my dinner, I said: "If you're disinclined for conversation you can have your own way." We went through the rest of the _menu_ in silence, I enjoying the good things provided for me, and he serving me with the readiest attention to the matter in hand. We did not address another word to each other until he had carefully poured out from its basket-cradle a glass of the wonderful port. I sipped it, and thought it just in the very least touched, and told him so. He took the glass, sniffed at the wine, and tasted it. "It's absolutely right," he said, "but of course you can have another bottle if you like." "Thank you," I said, and began to wonder, rather uneasily, as he was away fetching it, if in some way I was not to pay pretty dearly for the remarkable treatment I was undergoing. The second bottle of port was beyond criticism. When I had expressed my approval, the waiter put it on a little table by the side of the extremely easy chair, and indicated, but without saying so, that he wished to clear away. This he did, in complete silence; but before he finally left the room came over to where I was standing, and, holding out half a sovereign, said, still with the same inflection of contempt: "That's for yourself." I took the coin in my hand, and said, somewhat after the manner of a cabman who has been offered twopence for a _pour boire_: "What do you call this?" He flushed again, took it back, gave me half a crown instead, and then left the room. My evening in prison had so far brought me a dinner such as I seldom enjoyed, and five shillings in money. Why, but for my last question, it would have brought me seven and sixpence more, I was quite unable to imagine. CHAPTER III The cigars provided for me, if not of the exact brand as those smoked by Mr. Perry, were very good, and I had been enjoying one of them for some little time when I heard the outside door again being unlocked. "Now," I thought, "I may get some explanation of this extraordinary state of affairs, and may possibly find myself wishing that my entertainment had not cost the ratepayers of this town quite so much money." But I was in a state of such complete bodily satisfaction that I did not much care what should happen, and sat still until the door of my room was opened and a young man dressed in evening clothes came in. He seemed to be under the influence of some agitation, and as the reek of my cigar met his nostrils, and his eyes fell upon my bottle of port resting in its cradle, his jaw dropped. He raised his eyes to mine, and said: "I have come to make an appeal to you, sir." "Well, sit down and make it," I said, indicating a chair. "Will you have a glass of wine--I can recommend it--or a cigar?"