hed his sense, and the
rich wines ran through his veins, and the women around him smiled and
bent and moved like beautiful birds of beautiful plumage, he became
content, grandly content; and he half closed his eyes and imagined he
was giving a dinner to everybody in the place. Vain and idle thoughts
came to him and went again, and he eyed the others about him calmly
and with polite courtesy, as they did him, and he felt that if he must
later pay for this moment it was worth the paying.

Then he gave the waiter a couple of dollars out of his own pocket and
wrote Van Bibber's name on the check, and walked in state into the
_cafe_, where he ordered a green mint and a heavy, black, and
expensive cigar, and seated himself at the window, where he felt that
he should always have sat if the fates had been just. The smoke hung
in light clouds about him, and the lights shone and glistened on the
white cloths and the broad shirt-fronts of the smart young men and
distinguished foreign-looking older men at the surrounding tables.

And then, in the midst of his dreamings, he heard the soft, careless
drawl of his master, which sounded at that time and in that place like
the awful voice of a condemning judge. Van Bibber pulled out a chair
and dropped into it. His side was towards Walters, so that he did not
see him. He had some men with him, and he was explaining how he had
missed his train and had come back to find that one of the party had
eaten the dinner without him, and he wondered who it could be; and
then turning easily in his seat he saw Walters with the green mint and
the cigar, trembling behind a copy of the London _Graphic_.

"Walters!" said Van Bibber, "what are you doing here?"

Walters looked his guilt and rose stiffly. He began with a feeble "If
you please, sir--"

"Go back to my rooms and wait for me there," said Van Bibber, who was
too decent a fellow to scold a servant in public.

Walters rose and left the half-finished cigar and the mint with the
ice melting in it on the table. His one evening of sublimity was over,
and he walked away, bending before the glance of his young master and
the smiles of his master's friends.

When Van Bibber came back he found on his dressing-table a note from
Walters stating that he could not, of course, expect to remain longer
in his service, and that he left behind him the twenty-eight dollars
which the dinner had cost.

"If he had only gone off with all my waistcoats and scar