cts? Do you admit it?"

"I not only admit it, but I take pride in having them."

Mlle. de Sandoval turned her head away contemptuously; the twist Caesar
gave to her questions appeared to irritate her.

"Mlle. de Sandoval doesn't like me much," said Caesar to Mlle. Cadet.

"No? She generally says nice things about you."

"Perhaps my clothes appeal to her, or the way I tie my cravat; but my
ideas displease her."

"Because you say such severe things."

"Why do you say that at this moment? Because I spoke disparagingly of
those Germans? Are they attractive to you?"

"Oh, no! Not at all."

"They look like hunting dogs." "But whom do you approve of? The
English?"

"Not the English, either. They are a herd of cattle; sentimental,
ridiculous people who are in ecstatics over their aristocracy and over
their king. Latin peoples are something like cats, they are of the
feline race; a Frenchman is like a fat, well-fed cat; an Italian is like
an old Angora which has kept its beautiful fur; and the Spaniard is like
the cats on a roof, skinny, bare of fur, almost too weak to howl with
despair and hunger.... Then there are the ophidians, the Jews, the
Greeks, the Armenians...."

"Then for you the world is a zoological garden?"

"Well, isn't it?"

At midnight they tried to break the glass jar of bonbons. They
blindfolded various men, and one by one they made them turn around a
couple of times and then try to break the jar with a stick.

It was the Marquis Sciacca that did break the glass vase, and the pieces
fell on his head.

"Have you hurt yourself?" people asked him.

"No," said Caesar, reassuringly, but aside; "his head is protected."

_CHIROMANTIC INTERLUDE_

After this cornucopia number, there was a series of other games and
amusements, which required a hand-glass, a candle, and a bottle. The
conversation in Mlle. de Sandoval's group jumped from one thing to
another and finally arrived at palmistry.

Mlle. de Sandoval asked Caesar if he, as a Spaniard, knew how to tell
fortunes by the hand, and he jokingly replied that he did. Three or
four hands were stretched out toward Caesar, and he said whatsoever his
imagination suggested, foolishness, absurdities, impertinences; a little
of everything.

When anybody was a bit puzzled at Caesar's words, he said:

"Don't pay any attention to it; these are absurdities."

Afterwards Mlle. Cadet told Caesar that she was going to cast his
horoscope. "Good! Out wit