a most unworthy table for
me. Faugh! Uncle Giulio is a Hebrew--if not by birth, by instinct. He
carries his purse-strings in a knot which it would break his heart to
unfasten. But there! some day my Lord Cardinal will go to heaven--to the
lap of Abraham. I shall be rich then, vastly rich, and I shall bid
you to a banquet worthy of your most noble blood. The Cardinal's
health--perdition have him for the niggardliest rogue unhung!"

I pushed back my chair and rose. The conversation was taking a turn that
was too unhealthy to be pursued within the walls of the Palais Mazarin,
where there existed, albeit the law books made no reference to it, the
heinous crime of lese-Eminence--a crime for which more men had been
broken than it pleases me to dwell on.

"Your table, Master Andrea, needs no apology," I answered carelessly.
"Your wine, for instance, is beyond praise."

"Ah, yes! The wine! But, ciel! Monsieur," he ejaculated, for a moment
opening wide his heavy eyelids, "do you believe 't was Mazarin provided
it? Pooh! 'T was a present made me by M. de la Motte, who seeks my
interest with my Lord Cardinal to obtain for him an appointment in
his Eminence's household, and thus thinks to earn my good will. He's
a pestilent creature, this la Motte," he added, with a hiccough,--"a
pestilent creature; but, Sangdieu! his wine is good, and I'll speak to
my uncle. Help me up, De Luynes. Help me up, I say; I would drink the
health of this provider of wines."

I hurried forward, but he had struggled up unaided, and stood swaying
with one hand on the table and the other on the back of his chair. In
vain did I remonstrate with him that already he had drunk overmuch.

"'T is a lie!" he shouted. "May not a gentleman sit upon the floor from
choice?"

To emphasise his protestation he imprudently withdrew his hand from the
chair and struck at the air with his open palm. That gesture cost him
his balance. He staggered, toppled backward, and clutched madly at the
tablecloth as he fell, dragging glasses, bottles, dishes, tapers, and a
score of other things besides, with a deafening crash on to the floor.

Then, as I stood aghast and alarmed, wondering who might have overheard
the thunder of his fall, the fool sat up amidst the ruins, and filled
the room with his shrieks of drunken laughter.

"Silence, boy!" I thundered, springing towards him. "Silence! or we
shall have the whole house about our ears."

And truly were my fears well ground