and Heaven knew what else. He had ridden camels and polo ponies in the
Soudan; he had been shot in the Greece-Turkish war, shortly after his
having met Fitzgerald; he had played a part in the recent
Spanish-American, and had fought against the English in the Transvaal.

"And now I am resting," he concluded, turning his chambertin round and
round, giving the effect of a cluster of rubies on the table linen.
"And all my adventures have been as profitable as these," indebted for
the moment to the phantom rubies. "But it's all a great stage, whether
you play behind the wings or before the lights. I am thirty-eight;
into twenty of those years I have crowded a century."

"You don't look it."

"Ah, one does not need to dissipate to live quickly. The life I have
led has kept me in health and vigor. But you? You are not a man who
travels without gaining material."

"I have had a few adventures, something like yours, only not so widely
diversified. I wrote some successful short stories about China once.
I have had some good sport, too, here and there."

"You live well for a newspaper correspondent," suggested Breitmann,
nodding at the bottle of twenty-eight-year-old Burgundy.

"Oh, it's a habit we Americans have," amiably. "We rough it for a few
months on bacon and liver, and then turn our attention to truffles and
old wines and Cabanas at two-francs-fifty. We are collectively, a good
sort of vagabond. I have a little besides my work; not much, but
enough to loaf on when no newspaper or magazine cares to pay my
expenses in Europe. Anyhow, I prefer this work to staying home to be
hampered by intellectual boundaries. My vest will never reach the true
proportions which would make me successful in politics."

"You are luckier than I am," Breitmann replied. He sipped his wine
slowly and with relish. How long was it since he had tasted a good
chambertin?

Perhaps Fitzgerald had noticed it when Breitmann came in. The latter's
velvet collar was worn; there was a suspicious gloss at the elbows; the
cuff buttons were of cheap metal; his fingers were without rings. But
the American readily understood. There are lean years and fat years in
journalism, and he himself had known them. For the present this man
was a little down on his luck; that was all.

A party came in and took the near table. There were four; two elderly
men, an elderly woman, and a girl. Fitzgerald, as he side-glanced, was
afforded a shiver of p