mmand the maneuver,
and I will execute it."

"Taste that wine while I cut the pate."

"That is right," said the captain, "let us divide our forces, and fight
the enemy separately, then let us re-unite to exterminate what remains."

And joining practice to theory, the captain seized the first bottle by
the neck, drew the cork, and having filled a bumper, drank it off with
such ease that one would have said that nature had gifted him with an
especial method of deglutition; but, to do him justice, scarcely had he
drunk it than he perceived that the liquor, which he had disposed of so
cavalierly, merited a more particular attention than he had given it.

"Oh!" said he, putting down his glass with a respectful slowness, "what
have I done, unworthy that I am? I drink nectar as if it were trash, and
that at the beginning of the feast! Ah!" continued he, shaking his head,
"Roquefinette, my friend, you are getting old. Ten years ago you would
have known what it was at the first drop that touched your palate, while
now you want many trials to know the worth of things. To your health,
chevalier."

And this time the captain, more circumspect, drank the second glass
slowly, and set it down three times before he finished it, winking his
eyes in sign of satisfaction. Then, when he had finished--

"This is hermitage of 1702, the year of the battle of Friedlingen. If
your wine-merchant has much like that, and if he will give credit, let
me have his address. I promise him a good customer."

"Captain," answered the chevalier, slipping an enormous slice of pate on
to the plate of his guest, "my wine-merchant not only gives credit, but
to my friends he gives altogether."

"Oh, the honest man!" cried the captain. Then, after a minute's silence,
during which a superficial observer would have thought him absorbed in
the appreciation of the pate, as he had been an instant before in that
of the wine, he leaned his two elbows on the table, and looking at
D'Harmental with a penetrating glance between his knife and fork--

"So, my dear chevalier," said he, "we conspire, it seems, and in order
to succeed we have need of poor Captain Roquefinette."

"And who told you that, captain?" broke in the chevalier, trembling in
spite of himself.

"Who told me that, pardieu! It is an easy riddle to answer. A man who
gives away horses worth a hundred louis, who drinks wine at a pistole
the bottle, and who lodges in a garret in the Rue du Temps Perdu