e wines in the decanters.

"Anything," said he, "but this _piquette du pays_. It tastes like a
mixture of sea-water and vinegar. It produces the look of patient
suffering that you see on those gentlemen's faces. You, who are not
used to it, had better not venture. It would excoriate your throat. It
would dislocate your pancreas. It would play the very devil with you.
Adolphe"--he beckoned the waiter--"there's a little white wine of the
Cotes du Rhone----" He glanced at me.

"I'm in your hands," said I.

As far as eating and drinking went I could not have been in better. Nor
could anyone desire a more entertaining chance companion of travel. That
he had thrust himself upon me in the most brazen manner and taken
complete possession of me there could be no doubt. But it had all been
done in the most irresistibly charming manner in the world. One entirely
forgot the impudence of the fellow. I have since discovered that he did
not lay himself out to be agreeable. The flow of talk and anecdote, the
bright laughter that lit up a little joke, making it appear a very
brilliant joke indeed, were all spontaneous. He was a man, too, of some
cultivation. He knew France thoroughly, England pretty well; he had a
discriminating taste in architecture, and waxed poetical over the
beauties of Nature.

"It strikes me as odd," said I at last, somewhat ironically, "that so
vital a person as yourself should find scope for your energies in this
dead-and-alive place."

He threw up his hands. "I live here? I crumble and decay in
Aigues-Mortes? For whom do you take me?"

I replied that, not having the pleasure of knowing his name and quality,
I could only take him for an enigma.

He selected a card from his letter-case and handed it to me across the
table. It bore the legend:--

ARISTIDE PUJOL,
Agent.
213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore, Paris.

"That address will always find me," he said.

Civility bade me give him my card, which he put carefully in his
letter-case.

"I owe my success in life," said he, "to the fact that I have never lost
an opportunity or a visiting-card."

"Where did you learn your perfect English?" I asked.

"First," said he, "among English tourists at Marseilles. Then in
England. I was Professor of French at an academy for young ladies."

"I hope you were a success?" said I.

He regarded me drolly.

"Yes--and no," said he.

The meal over, we left the hotel.

"Now," said he, "