had resources within themselves. I laughed lightly, to imply
that it WAS very pleasant to have such resources, but that I didn't
want to boast. And, indeed, I had never felt humbler, flimsier, than
when the little man at the bureau, naming a fabulous sum, asked its
owner whether he would take the main part in notes of mille francs,
cinq-mille, dix-mille--quoi? Had it been mine, I should have asked to
have it all in five-franc pieces. Pethel took it in the most
compendious form, and crumpled it into his pocket. I asked if he were
going to play any more to-night.

"Oh, later on," he said. "I want to get a little sea air into my lungs
now." He asked, with a sort of breezy diffidence, if I would go with
him. I was glad to do so. It flashed across my mind that yonder on
the terrace he might suddenly blurt out: "I say, look here, don't think
me awfully impertinent, but this money's no earthly use to me. I do
wish you'd accept it as a very small return for all the pleasure your
work has given me, and-- There, PLEASE! Not another word!"--all with
such candor, delicacy, and genuine zeal that I should be unable to
refuse. But I must not raise false hopes in my reader. Nothing of the
sort happened. Nothing of that sort ever does happen.

We were not long on the terrace. It was not a night on which you could
stroll and talk; there was a wind against which you had to stagger,
holding your hat on tightly, and shouting such remarks as might occur
to you. Against that wind acquaintance could make no headway. Yet I
see now that despite that wind, or, rather, because of it, I ought
already to have known Pethel a little better than I did when we
presently sat down together inside the cafe of the casino. There had
been a point in our walk, or our stagger, when we paused to lean over
the parapet, looking down at the black and driven sea. And Pethel had
shouted that it would be great fun to be out in a sailing-boat
to-night, and that at one time he had been very fond of sailing.

As we took our seats in the cafe, he looked about him with boyish
interest and pleasure; then squaring his arms on the little table, he
asked me what I would drink. I protested that I was the host, a
position which he, with the quick courtesy of the very rich, yielded to
me at once. I feared he would ask for champagne, and was gladdened by
his demand for water.

"Apollinaris, St. Galmier, or what?" I asked. He preferred plain
water. I ven