cannot show me an actual living terrapin."

"What do you take me for--confidence man?" The Major retorted. "How you
expect an old sport like me to bet upon a certainty?"

"Never mind your ethics. The wager is drink, not money. In any event we
shall have the wine."

"Oh, well," says The Frenchman, with a shrug and a droll grimace, "if
you insist on paying for a bottle of wine come with me."

He took a lighted candle, and together they went back to the ice box.
It was literally filled with diamond backs, and my friend thought he was
gone for sure.

"La!" says The Major with triumph, rummaging among the mass of shells
with his cane as he held the candle aloft.

"But," says my friend, ready to surrender, yet taking a last chance,
"you told me they were dancing the cancan!"

The Major picked up a terrapin and turned it over in his hand. Quite
numb and frozen, the animal within made no sign. Then he stirred the
shells about in the box with his cane. Still not a show of life. Of a
sudden he stopped, reflected a moment, then looked at his watch.

"Ah," he murmured. "I quite forget. The terrapin, they are asleep. It is
ten-thirty, and the terrapin he regularly go to sleep at ten o'clock
by the watch every night." And without another word he reached for the
Veuve Cliquot!

For all his volubility in matters of romance and sentiment The Major
was exceeding reticent about his immediate self and his own affairs.
His legends referred to the distant of time and place. A certain dignity
could not be denied him, and, on occasion, a proper reserve; he rarely
mentioned his business--though he worked like a slave, and could not
have been making much or any profit--so that there rose the query how
he contrived to make both ends meet. Little by little I came into the
knowledge that there was a money supply from somewhere; finally, it
matters not how, that he had an annuity of forty thousand francs, paid
in quarterly installments of ten thousand francs each.

Occasionally he mentioned "the Old House," and in relating the famous
Sophonisba episode late at night, and only in the very fastnesses of
the wine cellar, as it were, at the most lachrymose passage he spoke of
"l'Oncle Celestin," with the deepest feeling.

"Did you ever hear The Frenchman tell that story about Sophonisba?"
Doctor Stoic, whom on account of his affectation of insensibility we
were wont to call Old Adamant, once asked me. "Well, sir, the other
night he told it