as sitting on Grandstone's steps as we emerged. Aged hardly fourteen,
he had turned his young nose toward the rich fumes coming up from the
kitchen with a look of sensuality and indulgence that amused me. The
maid, on a hint of mine, gave him a biscuit and the remainders of
our bottles emptied into a bowl. A smile of extreme breadth and
intelligence spread over his face. Opening his bag, he laid by the
biscuit, and extracted a morsel of iced cake: at the same time he
produced an old-fashioned, long-waisted champagne-glass, nicked at the
rim and quite without a stand. Filling this from his bowl, he drank to
the health of the waitress with the easiest politeness it was ever my
lot to see. Ragged as a beggar of Murillo's, courteous as a hidalgo
by Velasquez, he added a grace and an epicurism completely French.
I thought him the best possible figure-head for that opulent spot,
cradle of the hilarity of the world. I gave him five francs.

[Illustration: MAC MEURTRIER.]

We proceeded to admire the town. The great curiosities of Epernay,
its glory and pomp, are not permitted to see the daylight. They
are subterranean and introverted. They are the cellars. Those rich
colonnades of Commerce street, all those porticoes surmounted with
Greek or Roman triangles in the nature of pediments, of what antique
religion are they the representations? They are cellar-doors.

[Illustration: THE BLACK DOMINO.]

It was impossible to quit the city without visiting its cellars, said
Grandstone, and we betook ourselves under his guidance to one of the
most renowned.

I only thought of seeing a battle-field of bottles, but I found the
Eleusinian mysteries.

[Illustration: TAM O'SHANTER'S RIDE.]

In the temple-porch of Eleusis was fixed a large pale face, in the
middle parts of which a red nose was glowing like a fuse. Several
other personages, in company with this visage, received us on our
approach with a world of solemn and terrifying signals.

Directly a man in a cloak and slouched hat, and holding in his hands
a wire fencing-mask, extinguished with it the red nose. The latter
met his fate with stolid fortitude. All were perfectly still, but the
twitching cheeks of most of the spectators betrayed a laugh retained
with difficulty. The cloak then advanced, like a less beautiful Norma,
to a bell in the portico, and struck three tragical strokes. A strong,
pealing bass voice came from the interior: "Who dares knock at this
door?"

"A ni