impressed. In further conversation I told her something of your
early life, and, though not over desirous of blackening my
character in her bonnie eyes, I let her know what kind of an
injudicious upbringing you had been compelled to undergo. '_Il a
ete eleve_,' said I, '_dans_----' What the blazes was the
French for cotton-wool? The war has a pernicious effect on one's
memory--I sometimes even forget the elementary sensations of
inebriety. '_Dans la ouate_,' she said. And I remembered the
word. '_Oui, dans la ouate_,' said I. And she looked at me,
laddie, or, rather, through me, out of her great dark eyes--you
mind the way she treats your substance as a shadow and looks
through it at the shadows that to her are substances--and she
said below her breath--I don't think she meant me to hear
it--'_Et c'est lui qui a fait cela pour moi_.'

"Mo, in his materialistic way, is clamorous that I should tell
you about the chicken; the which, being symbolical, I proceed to
do. It was our last day. She invited us to lunch in the kitchen
and shut the door so that none of the hungry varlets of the
company should stick in their unmannerly noses and whine for
scraps. And there, laddie, was an omelette and cutlets and a
chicken and a _fromage a la creme_ such as in the days of my
vanity I have never eaten, cooked by the old body whose soul you
won with a pinch of snuff. The poor lassie could scarcely eat;
but Mo saw that there was nothing left. The bones on his plate
looked as if a dog had been at them for a week. And there was
vintage Haut Sauterne which ran down one's throat like scented
gold. 'Man,' said I to Mo, 'if you lap it up like that you'll be
as drunk as Noah.' So he cast a frightened glance at
mademoiselle and sipped like a young lady at a christening
party. Then she brings out cherries and plums and peaches and
opens a half-bottle of champagne and fills all our glasses, and
Toinette had a glass; and she rises in the pale, dignified,
Greek tragedy way she has, and she makes a wee bit speech.
'_Messieurs_,' she said, 'perhaps you may wonder why I have
invited you. But I think you understand. It is the only way I
had of sharing with Doggie's friends the fortune that he had so
heroically brought me. It is but a little tribute of my
gratitude to Doggie. You are his friends and I wish