I put the glass on the mantelpiece and picked it up again.

'Don't be frightened,' he soothed me. 'I know what you were going to
say. You have always heard that absinthe is the deadliest of all poisons,
that it is the curse of Paris, and that it makes the most terrible of all
drunkards. So it is; so it does. But not as we are drinking it; not as I
invariably drink it.'

'Of course,' I said, proudly confident in him. 'You would not have
offered it to me otherwise.'

'Of course I should not,' he agreed. 'I give you my word that a few drops
of absinthe in a tumbler of water make the most effective and the least
harmful stimulant in the world.'

'I am sure of it,' I said.

'But drink slowly,' he advised me.

I refused the sandwiches. I had no need of them. I felt sufficient unto
myself. I no longer had any apprehension. My body, my brain, and my soul
seemed to be at the highest pitch of efficiency. The fear of being
maladroit departed from me. Ideas--delicate and subtle ideas--welled up
in me one after another; I was bound to give utterance to them. I began
to talk about my idol Chopin, and I explained to Diaz my esoteric
interpretation of the Fantasia. He was sitting down now, but I still
stood by the fire.

'Yes, he said, 'that is very interesting.'