o the nearest cafe,
where we sat down before a little iron table on the pavement.

'Garcon!' he shouted harshly, 'bring me four absinthes. What will you
drink, Ducharme?',

'A cafe-cognac, if you please.'

'Bah!' cried Simard; 'better have absinthe.'

Then he cursed the waiter for his slowness. When the absinthe came he
grasped the half-full glass and swallowed the liquid raw, a thing I
had never seen done before. Into the next measure of the wormwood he
poured the water impetuously from the carafe, another thing I had
never seen done before, and dropped two lumps of sugar into it. Over
the third glass he placed a flat perforated plated spoon, piled the
sugar on this bridge, and now quite expertly allowed the water to drip
through, the proper way of concocting this seductive mixture.
Finishing his second glass he placed the perforated spoon over the
fourth, and began now more calmly sipping the third while the water
dripped slowly into the last glass.

Here before my eyes was enacted a more wonderful change than the
gradual transformation of transparent absinthe into an opaque
opalescent liquid. Simard, under the influence of the drink, was
slowly becoming the Simard I had known ten years before. Remarkable!
Absinthe having in earlier years made a beast of the man was now
forming a man out of the beast. His staring eyes took on an expression
of human comradeship. The whole mystery became perfectly clear to me
without a question asked or an answer uttered. This man was no spy,
but a genuine anarchist. However it happened, he had become a victim
of absinthe, one of many with whom I was acquainted, although I never
met any so far sunk as he. He was into his fourth glass, and had
ordered two more when he began to speak.

'Here's to us,' he cried, with something like a civilised smile on his
gaunt face. 'You're not offended at what I said in the meeting, I
hope?'

'Oh, no,' I answered.

'That's right. You see, I once belonged to the Secret Service, and if
my chief was there today, we would soon find ourselves in a cool
dungeon. We couldn't trip up Eugene Valmont.'

At these words, spoken with sincerity, I sat up in my chair, and I am
sure such an expression of enjoyment came into my face that if I had
not instantly suppressed it, I might have betrayed myself.

'Who was Eugene Valmont?' I asked, in a tone of assumed indifference.

Mixing his fifth glass he nodded sagely.

'You wouldn't ask that question if you