f
his goodness or my own greediness that prompted me I know not, but I
pushed my half eaten egg across to him and begged him to finish it. He
looked queerly at me for a moment.

"I accept it," said he, "in the spirit in which it is offered."

The great man solemnly ate my egg, and pride so filled my heart that I
could scarcely swallow. A smaller man than Paragot would have refused.

From what I gathered from conversations overheard whilst I was serving
members with tripe and alcohol, it appeared that my revered master was a
mysterious personage. About eight months before, he had entered the then
unprosperous Club for the first time as a guest of the founder and
proprietor, an old actor who was growing infirm. He talked vehemently.
The next night he took the presidential chair which he since occupied,
to the Club's greater glory. But whence he came, who and what he was, no
one seemed to know. One fat man whose air of portentous wisdom (and
insatiable appetite) caused me much annoyance, proclaimed him a Russian
Nihilist and asked me whether there were any bombs in his bedroom.
Another man declared that he had seen him leading a bear in the streets
of Warsaw. His manner offended me.

"Have you ever been to Warsaw, Mr. Ulysses?" asked the fat man. Mr.
Ulysses was the traditional title of the head of the Lotus Club.

"This gentleman says he saw you leading a bear there, Master," I piped,
wrathfully, in my shrill treble.

There was the sudden silence of consternation. All, some five and
twenty, laid down their knives and forks and looked at Paragot, who rose
from his seat. Throwing out his right hand he declaimed:

[Greek: "Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, polutropon, os mala polla
plagchthe, epei Troies Ieron ptoliethron epersen
pollon d' anthropon iden astea, kai noon egno.]

"Does anyone know what that is?"

A young fellow at the end of the table said it was the opening lines of
the Odyssey.

"You are right, sir," said Paragot, threading his fingers through his
long black hair. "They tell of my predecessor in office, the first
President of this Club, who was a man of many wanderings and many
sufferings and had seen many cities and knew the hearts of men. I,
gentlemen, have had my Odyssey, and I have been to Warsaw, and," with a
rapier flash of a glance at the gentleman who had accused him of leading
bears, "I know the miserable hearts of men." He rapped on the table with
his hammer. "Asticot, co