As I sat watching the changing crowd I heard some men at the next table talking of a man sitting over in a corner who once had a fortune that he had won by forecasting events, but whose gift had left him suddenly, and now his money was gone and he was without a friend. I looked over toward the corner curiously. Leaning against one of the supporting pillars of the low-studded room, I saw a pale, weary-looking man. I did not need to look at the glass on the table to learn what he was drinking. I recognized by that sallow skin, the frequent convulsive starts, and the little catch in his breathing, an habitual _absintheur_. He sat apart from the others, and no one spoke to him during the evening. Occasionally he ordered drink, and then sat for several minutes watching lovingly the green, opalescent lights in the liquid before him. I had forgotten all about him, when, chancing to glance in his direction a few minutes later, I saw that an altercation was taking place. The Prophet was having an argument with the waiter over the payment of his bill. I saw him thrust his hand in his pockets, searching desperately for a coin, but in vain. Hoping that perhaps I might learn something of the man’s story, I arose, and, sitting down opposite him, I threw out a few coins, telling the waiter to take out the payment of my friend’s bill, and to bring us a bottle of Vie de Anise. Do you think he was offended? You do not know the action of that insidious poison. Honor, ambition, everything, are but as baubles to the devotee of absinthe. “Vie de Anise, did you say?” he asked, eagerly, leaning over the table. “It is years since I have tasted any of that.” I sat with him until nearly midnight; but try as I would I could not draw the man out. Several times I skillfully directed the conversation in the desired channel, but each time he as skillfully eluded me. He was in terrible condition. His nerves were completely shattered. He could scarcely sit still for a minute; and his hand shook so, as he raised the glass to his lips, that the green liquor spilled and ran over on to the sawdust floor. At last, as it was nearly time for the place to close, I asked him point-blank to tell me the story of his life. He looked at me strangely. I do not know, it may have been the drink, but someway he did not look like the man I had sat down with a few hours before. The tired, weary look had completely disappeared, his face was flushed, and his eyes were as bright as a child’s. “Not to-night,” he said, in answer to my request, “but sometime. Sometime when I can prove to you my right to the title, I will tell you why they used to call me The Prophet. For, sometime, the gift will come back to me again.” He leaned over the table and looked me full in the face with those unnaturally bright eyes as he whispered: “It is coming back soon, I can feel it. The false prophet shall redeem himself.”