ok around the table here at which I am
invited to seat myself, and I perceive nothing but a few stumpy pens and
unappetising blotting-paper. By chance I lift my eyes. I see the parting
of the curtains yonder, and behold!"

He rose and crossed the room, throwing back a curtain at the further
end. In the recess stood a sideboard, laden with all manner of liqueurs
and wines, glasses of every size and shape, sandwiches, pasties, and
fruit. Herr Selingman stood on one side with outstretched hand, in the
manner of a showman. He himself was wrapped for a moment in admiration.

"For you others I cannot speak," he observed, surveying the label upon a
bottle of hock. "For myself, here is nectar."

With careful fingers he drew the cork. At a murmured word of invitation
from Mr. Grex, the others rose from their places and also helped
themselves from the sideboard. Selingman took up his position in the
centre of the hearth-rug, with a long tumbler of yellow wine in one hand
and a sandwich in the other.

"For myself," he continued, taking a huge bite, "I wage war against all
formality. I have been through this sort of thing in Berlin. I have been
through it in Vienna, I have been through it in Rome. I have sat at long
tables with politicians, have drawn little pictures upon the
blotting-paper and been bored to death. In wearisome fashion we have
drafted agreements, we have quarrelled and bickered, we have yawned and
made of ourselves men of parchment. But to-night," he added, taking
another huge bite from his sandwich, "to-night nothing of that sort is
intended. Draconmeyer and I have an idea. Mr. Grex is favourably
inclined towards it. That idea isn't a bit of good to ourselves or any
one else unless Monsieur Douaille here shares our point of view. Here we
are, then, all met together--let us hope for a week or two's enjoyment.
Little by little we must try and see what we can do towards instilling
that idea into the mind of Monsieur Douaille. We may succeed, we may
fail, but let us always remember that our conversations are the
conversations of four friends, met together upon what is nothing more or
less than a holiday. I hate the sight of those sheets of blotting-paper
and clean pens. Who wants to make notes, especially of what we are going
to talk about! The man who cannot carry notes in his head is no
statesman."

Monsieur Douaille, who had chosen champagne and was smoking a cigarette,
beamed approval. Much of his nervousness