llar? What
thoughts have run riot under this piece of felt? The brain, the brain!
A lieutenant at this time; a short, wiry, cold-blooded youngster, but
dreaming the greatest dream in the world!"

Fitzgerald smiled. "You are an enthusiast like myself."

"Who wouldn't be who has, visited every battlefield, who has spent days
wandering about Corsica, Elba, St. Helena? But you?"

"My word, I have done the same things."

They exchanged smiles.

"What written tale can compare with this living one?" continued
Breitmann, his eyes brilliant, his voice eager and the tone rich. "Ah!
How many times have I berated the day I was born! To have lived in
that day, to have been a part of that bewildering war panorama; from
Toulon to Waterloo! Pardon; perhaps I bore you?"

"By George, no! I'm as bad, if not worse. I shall never forgive one
of my forebears for serving under Wellington."

"Nor I one of mine for serving under Bluecher!"

They laughed aloud this time. It is always pleasant to meet a person
who waxes enthusiastic over the same things as oneself. And Fitzgerald
was drawn toward this comparative stranger, who was not ashamed to
speak from his heart. They drifted into a long conversation, and
fought a dozen battles, compared this general and that, and built idle
fancies upon what the outcome would have been had Napoleon won at
Waterloo. This might have gone on indefinitely had not the patient
attendant finally dandled his keys and yawned over his watch. It was
four o'clock, and they had been talking for a full hour. They
exchanged cards, and Fitzgerald, with his usual disregard of
convention, invited Breitmann to dine with him that evening at the
Meurice.

He selected a table by the window, dining at seven-thirty. Breitmann
was prompt. In evening clothes there was something distinctive about
the man. Fitzgerald, who was himself a wide traveler and a man of the
world, instantly saw and was agreeably surprised that he had asked a
gentleman to dine. Fitzgerald was no cad; he would have been just as
much interested in Breitmann had he arrived in a cutaway sack. But
chance acquaintances, as a rule, are rudimental experiments.

They sat down. Breitmann was full of surprises; and as the evening
wore on, Fitzgerald remembered having seen Breitmann's name at the foot
of big newspaper stories. The man had traveled everywhere, spoke five
languages, had been a war correspondent, a sailor in the South Seas,