urned to Philip.

"Just out from England? See any cricket?"

Philip was a little confused at the unexpected question.

"Cronshaw knows the averages of every first-class cricketer for the last
twenty years," said Lawson, smiling.

The Frenchman left them for friends at another table, and Cronshaw, with
the lazy enunciation which was one of his peculiarities, began to
discourse on the relative merits of Kent and Lancashire. He told them of
the last test match he had seen and described the course of the game
wicket by wicket.

"That's the only thing I miss in Paris," he said, as he finished the
bock which the waiter had brought. "You don't get any cricket."

Philip was disappointed, and Lawson, pardonably anxious to show off one of
the celebrities of the Quarter, grew impatient. Cronshaw was taking his
time to wake up that evening, though the saucers at his side indicated
that he had at least made an honest attempt to get drunk. Clutton watched
the scene with amusement. He fancied there was something of affectation in
Cronshaw's minute knowledge of cricket; he liked to tantalise people by
talking to them of things that obviously bored them; Clutton threw in a
question.

"Have you seen Mallarme lately?"

Cronshaw looked at him slowly, as if he were turning the inquiry over in
his mind, and before he answered rapped on the marble table with one of
the saucers.

"Bring my bottle of whiskey," he called out. He turned again to Philip. "I
keep my own bottle of whiskey. I can't afford to pay fifty centimes for
every thimbleful."

The waiter brought the bottle, and Cronshaw held it up to the light.

"They've been drinking it. Waiter, who's been helping himself to my
whiskey?"

"Mais personne, Monsieur Cronshaw."

"I made a mark on it last night, and look at it."

"Monsieur made a mark, but he kept on drinking after that. At that rate
Monsieur wastes his time in making marks."

The waiter was a jovial fellow and knew Cronshaw intimately. Cronshaw
gazed at him.

"If you give me your word of honour as a nobleman and a gentleman that
nobody but I has been drinking my whiskey, I'll accept your statement."

This remark, translated literally into the crudest French, sounded very
funny, and the lady at the comptoir could not help laughing.

"Il est impayable," she murmured.

Cronshaw, hearing her, turned a sheepish eye upon her; she was stout,
matronly, and middle-aged; and solemnly kissed his hand to her. She
shr