and food which would be available for our consumption at that
time.

[Illustration: FROM ITS DEPTHS I EXTRACTED THE PARTING GIFTS BESTOWED
UPON ME BY MY GREAT-AUNT PAULINA]

Accordingly I nodded, saying: "_Oui, oui; je comprends._" And at that,
seemingly satisfied, the worthy fellow withdrew, all smiles. Shortly
thereafter we drifted off to sleep and I knew no more until I was roused
by the brilliant rays of the August sun shining in my face and rose to
a sitting attitude, to find that the third man had already departed,
leaving to Zeno the Great and myself the complete occupancy of the
billiard table.

As I straightened to my full stature, with my limbs aching and my whole
corporeal frame much stiffened by enforced contact during a period of
hours with the comparatively unyielding surface of the billiard table, I
made another discovery, highly disconcerting in its nature. Ere retiring
to rest I had placed my shoes side by side beneath the table. It was now
evident that while I slept some person or persons unknown to me had
removed them. I hypothesised this deduction from the fact that they were
quite utterly gone. A thorough scrutiny of my surroundings, which I
conducted with the aid of my late sleeping companion, merely served to
confirm this belief, the search being bootless. I have no intention of
making a pun here. Puns are to me vulgar, and hence odious. I mean
bootless in the proper sense of the word.

Balancing myself on the marge or verge of the billiard table--for the
tiled surface of the floor had imparted a sense of chill to my
half-soled feet and already I was beginning to repress incipient
sneezes--I called aloud, and yet again I called. There was no response.
A sense of the undignifiedness of my attitude came to me. I opened my
remaining portmanteau, which had served me as a pillow--and such a
pillow! From its depths I extracted the parting gifts bestowed upon me
by my Great-Aunt Paulina and adjusted them to my chilled extremities.
Ah, little had she recked, as her deft fingers wove the several skeins
of wool into the finished fabric, that under such circumstances as
these, in such a place as this, and almost within sound of war's dread
alarums, I should now wear them!

I was reminded that I craved food and I mentioned the thought to Mr.
Finnigan--or, as I shall call him, Zeno the Great. It appeared that he,
too, was experiencing a similar natural longing, for his manner
instantly became exuberantl