!'
Ah, _diable_! Always I can see zem tweest up!"

"Reg'lar rough on rats carnival, eh?" says I. "Three hundred beautiful
ladies and poor children, not to mention a few men, doin' the agony act
on the dinin' room floor! There, Jarvis! How'd you like to carry round a
movin' picture film like that in your mem'ry? Course, I've tried to
explain to Heiney that nothing of the kind ever took place; that the
papers would have been full of it; and that he'd been in the jug long
before this, if it had. But this is Heiney's own particular pipe dream,
and he can't let go of it. It's got tangled up in the works somehow, and
nothing I can say will jar it loose. Poor cuss! Look at him! No doubt
about its seemin' real to him, is there? And how does your little
collection of fleabites show up alongside it; eh, Jarvis?"

But Jarvis, he's gazin' at Heiney as if this lump of moldy sweitzerkase
was fascinatin' to look at.

"I beg pardon," says he, "but you say this hotel was at Lake Como?"

Heiney nods his head, then covers his face with his hands, as if he was
seein' things again.

"And what was the date of this--this unfortunate occurrence?" says
Jarvis.

"Year before the last, in Augoost," says Heiney, shudderin',--"Augoost
seven."

"The seventh of August!" says Jarvis. "And was your hotel the Occident?"

"_Oui, oui_!" says Heiney. "_L'Hotel Occident_."

"Guess he means Accident," says I. "What do you know about it, Jarvis?"

"Why," says he, "I was there."

"What?" says I. "Here, Heiney, wake up! Here's one of the victims of your
rat poison soup. Does he look as though he'd been through that floor
tweestin' orgy?"

With that Heiney gets mighty interested; but he ain't convinced until
Jarvis gives him all the details, even to namin' the landlord and
describin' the head waiter.

"But ze soup!" says Heiney. "Ze poi-zon-ed soup?"

"It was bad soup," says Jarvis; "but not quite so bad as that. Nobody
could eat it, and I believe the final report that we had on the subject
was to the effect that a half intoxicated chef had seasoned it with the
powdered alum that should have gone into the morning rolls."

"Ze alum! Ze alum! Of zat I nevair think!" squeals Heiney, flopping down
on his knees. "Ah, _le bon Dieu! Le bon Dieu_!"

He clasps his hands in front of him and rolls his eyes to the ceilin'.
Say, it was the liveliest French prayin' I ever saw; for Heiney is
rockin' back and forth, his pop eyes leakin' brine, and the polly-