After that
they apparently felt hungry. At all events they ordered breakfast. I
followed their example. The meal, with coffee and beer afterward, took
up no little time, and indeed a couple of hours had elapsed before they
were ready to pay their bill and go. Good! I supposed they would now
return home. Not at all. They walked down the Rue Dauphin; and I saw
them enter another cafe. Five minutes later I glided in after them; and
found them already engaged in a game of billiards."
At this point Father Absinthe hesitated; it is no easy task to recount
one's blunders to the very person who has suffered by them.
"I seated myself at a little table," he eventually resumed, "and asked
for a newspaper. I was reading with one eye and watching with the other,
when a respectable-looking man entered, and took a seat beside me. As
soon as he had seated himself he asked me to let him have the paper when
I had finished with it. I handed it to him, and then we began talking
about the weather. At last he proposed a game of bezique. I declined,
but we afterward compromised the matter by having a game of piquet. The
young men, you understand, were still knocking the balls about. We began
by playing for a glass of brandy each. I won. My adversary asked for
his revenge, and we played two games more. I still kept on winning.
He insisted upon another game, and again I won, and still I drank--and
drank again--"
"Go on, go on."
"Ah! here's the rub. After that I remember nothing--nothing either
about the man I had been playing with or the young men.
Pages:
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216