and the other extreme of indifferent bluntness in
our requests, tended, I think, to make that meal far from exhilarating.
Indeed, the unusual depression affected the unfortunate cause of it,
who added to our confusion by increased solicitude of service and--as if
fearful of some fault, or having incurred our disfavor--by a deprecatory
and exaggerated humility that in our sensitive state seemed like the
keenest irony. At last, evidently interpreting our constraint before him
into a desire to be alone, he retired to the door of a distant pantry,
whence he surveyed us with dark and sorrowful Southern eyes. Tallant,
who in this general embarrassment had been imperfectly served, and had
eaten nothing, here felt his grievance reach its climax, and in a sudden
outbreak of recklessness he roared out, "Hi, waiter--you, Tournelli. He
may," he added, turning darkly to us, "buy up enough stock to control
the board and dismiss ME; but, by thunder, if it costs me my place, I'm
going to have some more chicken!"

It was probably this sensitiveness that kept us from questioning him,
even indirectly, and perhaps led us into the wildest surmises. He was
acting secretly for a brotherhood or society of waiters; he was a silent
partner of his German employer; he was a disguised Italian stockbroker,
gaining "points" from the unguarded conversation of "operating"
customers; he was a political refugee with capital; he was a fugitive
Sicilian bandit, investing his ill-gotten gains in California; he was
a dissipated young nobleman, following some amorous intrigue across the
ocean, and acting as his own Figaro or Leporello. I think a majority of
us favored the latter hypothesis, possibly because we were young, and
his appearance gave it color. His thin black mustaches and dark eyes,
we felt, were Tuscan and aristocratic; at least, they were like the
baritone who played those parts, and HE ought to know. Yet nothing could
be more exemplary and fastidious than his conduct towards the few lady
frequenters of the "Poodle Dog" restaurant, who, I regret to say, were
not puritanically reserved or conventual in manner.

But an unexpected circumstance presently changed and divided our
interest. It was alleged by Clay, the assistant editor, that entering
the restaurant one evening he saw the back and tails of a coat that
seemed familiar to him half-filling a doorway leading to the restaurant
kitchen. It was unmistakably the figure of one of our Club member