ing sun threw raspberry lights on the
cream-colored mat.

"Be seated, gentlemen," said Le Mesge noisily. "Lieutenant de
Saint-Avit, you were not with us last evening. You are about to taste
the cooking of Koukou, our Bambara chef, for the first time. You must
give me your opinion of it."

A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento
sauce as red as tomatoes.

I have explained that I was ravenously hungry. The dish was exquisite.
The sauce immediately made me thirsty.

"White Ahaggar, 1879," the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he
filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid. "I developed it myself:
_rien pour la tete, tout pour les jambes_."

I emptied the goblet at a gulp. The company began to seem charming.

"Well, Captain Morhange," Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had
taken a mouthful of fish, "what do you say to this acanthopterygian?
It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis. Do you begin to admit
the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?"

"The fish is an argument," my companion replied.

Suddenly he became silent. The door had opened. A white Targa entered.
The diners stopped talking.

The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right
arm.

"Very well," said Morhange.

He got up and followed the messenger.

The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky. I
filled my goblet--a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.

The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow. "Antinea has
respect for the hierarchic order."

The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Le Mesge again.

My glass was empty. For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head
of the Fellow in History. But what of it? I filled it and emptied it
again.

"Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton," said the
Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick
slice of meat.

"He won't regret it," said the Hetman crossly. "This is not roast; it
is ram's horn. Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us."

"Blame it on the Reverend," the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in. "I
have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook
alone."

"Professor," Spardek began with dignity.

"I maintain my contention," cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be
getting a bit overloaded. "I call the gentleman to witness," he went
on, turning to me. "He has just come. He is u