ing down on the bed and taking his
head in his hands, "I was screwed all right, and I fell like a barrel in
the Falls of Niagara. I'm ever so much obliged to you for not kicking up
a row here. My room is next or opposite or somewhere, I guess--that is,
if I'm in the Universe."

Antony said that he was.

"I feel," said the young man, "as though its revolutions had
accelerated."

"There's water over there," said Antony; "you're welcome to have it."

"See here," said the total stranger, "if you're half the brick you
seem--and you are or you wouldn't have let me snore all night on the
carpet--ring for Alphonse and send him out to get some bromo seltzer.
There's a chemist's bang up against the hotel, and he's got that line of
drugs."

Fairfax put out his arm and rang from the bed. The young man waited
dejectedly; having taken off his coat and collar, he looked somewhat
mournfully at his silk hat which, the worse for his usage of it, had
rolled in a corner of Fairfax's room.

Alphonse, who for a wonder was within a few steps of the room, answered
the bell, his advent announced by the shuffling of his old slippers; but
before he had knocked the young man slid across the room and stood flat
behind the door so that, when it opened, his presence would not be
observed by the valet.

The man, for whom Fairfax had not yet had occasion to ring, opened the
door and stood waiting for the order. He was a small, round-faced fellow
in a green barege apron, that came up and down and all over him. In his
hand he carried a melancholy feather duster.

"Le dejeuner, Monsieur?" smiled Alphonse cordially, "un cafe complet?"

"Yes," acquiesced Antony eagerly, "and as well, would you go to the
pharmacy and get me a bottle of bromo seltzer?"

"Bien, Monsieur." The valet looked much surprised and considered
Fairfax's handsome, healthy face. "Bien, Monsieur," and he waited.

Fairfax was about to say: "Give me my waistcoat," but remembering his
secluded friend, sprang out of bed and gave to Alphonse a five-franc
piece.

"You're a brick," said the young man, coming out from behind the door.
"I'm awfully obliged. Now let me get my head in a basin of water and
I'll be back with you in a jiffy." And he darted out evidently into the
next room, for Fairfax heard the door bang and lock.

Fairfax threw back his head and laughed. He was not utterly alone in
France, he had a drunken neighbour, a fellow companion on the sixth
floor of the Univer