the line with a rigid forefinger. "If you don't care what happens to
you, we might try a couple of cocktails--that is, if you like the taste
of _eau de quinine_. Oh, I'll tell you what! Here are lemons, seltzer
and gin. Boy, two gin fizzes."

The attendant, who was very juvenile and much afraid of his job, smiled
and shook his head.

"Do you mean to say that you never heard of a gin fizz?" asked Mr. Pike.
"All the ingredients within reach, simply waiting to be introduced to
each other, and you have been holding them apart. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself. Bring out some ice. Produce your jigger. Get busy.
Hand me the tools and I'll do this myself."

Then, while the other two looked on in abashed admiration, Mr. Pike
deftly squeezed the lemons and splashed in allopathic portions of the
crystal fluid and used ice most wastefully. After vigorous shaking and
patient straining he shot a seething stream of seltzer into each glass
and finally delivered to Popova a translucent drink that was very tall
and capped with foam.

"Hide that, Professor," he said. "In a few minutes you will speak
several new languages."

Popova sipped conservatively.

"Don't be afraid," urged Mr. Pike, encouragingly. "If the boy watched me
carefully, possibly he can duplicate the order."

The youth was more than willing, for he seldom received instruction.
With now and then a word of counsel or warning from the wise man of the
west in the corner, he cautiously assembled two other fizzes, while Mr.
Pike, in a most nonchalant and roundabout manner, sought information
concerning affairs of state, local politics, the Governor-General's
household and Princess Kalora. Popova told more than he had meant to
tell and more than he knew that he was telling.

It may have been that the fizzes were insidious or that Mr. Pike was
unduly persuasive, or that a combination of these two powerful
influences moved the elderly tutor to impulses of unusual generosity. At
any rate, he found himself possessed of an affection for the young man
from Bessemer, Pennsylvania. It was an affection both fatherly and
brotherly. When Mr. Pike asked him to perform just a small service for
him, he promised and then promised again and was still promising when
his host went with him to the carriage and said that he had not lived in
vain and that in years to come he would gather his grandchildren around
him and tell of the circumstances of his meeting with the greatest
scholar