a pleasure to see
yo' again."

"At least," suggested P. Sybarite, dropping into a chair, "it will be,
next time."

"Tha's right, suh--that's the troof!" The negro placed a small table
adjacent to his elbow. "Tha's what Ah allus says to strange gemmun,
fust time they comes hyeh, suh; makes 'em feel more at home like. Jus'
lemme know what Ah kin do for yo' to-night. That 'ere lobstuh
Newburg's jus' about prime fo' eatin' this very minute, ef yo' feel a
bit peckish."

"I do," P. Sybarite admitted. "Just a spoonful--"

"An' uh lil drink, suh? Jus' one lil innercent cocktail to fix yo'
mouf right?"

"If you insist, Pete--if you insist."

"Yas-suh; and wif the lobstuh, suh, Ah venture to sug-gest a nice cold
lil ha'f-pint of Cliquot, Yallah Label? How that strike yo' fancy,
suh? Er mebbe yo'd perfuh--"

"Enough!" said P. Sybarite firmly. "A mere bite and a glass are enough
to sustain life."

"Ain't that the troof?"

Chuckling, the negro waddled away, returned, and offered the guest a
glass brimming with amber-tinted liquid.

Poising the vessel delicately between thumb and forefinger, P.
Sybarite treated himself to one small sip--an instant of lingering
delectation--another sip. So only, it is asserted, must the victim of
the desert begin to allay his burning thirst; with discretion--a sip
at a time--gingerly.

It was years since P. Sybarite had tasted a cocktail artfully
concocted.

Dreamily he closed his eyes halfway. From a point in his anatomy a
degree or two south of his diaphragm, a sensation of the most warm
congratulation began to pervade his famished system: as if (he
thought) his domestic economy were organising a torchlight procession
by way of appropriate celebration.

Tender morsels of lobster smothered in cream and sherry (piping hot)
daintiest possible wafers of bread-and-butter embracing leaves of pale
lettuce, a hollow-stemmed glass effervescent with liquid sunlight of a
most excellent bouquet, and then another: these served not in the
least to subdue his occult jubilation.

Finally "the house," through the medium of its servitor, insisted that
he top off with a cigar.

Ten years since his teeth had gripped a Fancy Tales of Smoke!...

Now it mustn't be understood that P. Sybarite entertained any
misapprehensions as to the nature of the institution into which he had
stumbled. He had not needed the sound, sometimes in quieter moments
audible from upstairs, of a prolonged whirr ending in