"Do you mean, then, to go on foot to Épernay?"

"What do you mean, Épernay?"

"Why, have you forgotten the feast of Saint Athanasius?"

"What do you mean, Athanasius?"

The baritone belonged to one of my friends, an engineer from Boston.
He had an American commission to inspect the canals of Europe on the
part of a company formed to buy out the Sound line of steamers and
dig a ship-canal from Boston to Providence. The engineer had made
his inspection the excuse for a few years of not disagreeable travel,
during which time the company had exploded, its chief financier having
cut his throat when his peculations came out to the public.

[Illustration: LOCOMONIAC POSSESSION.]

"Are you trying, then, to escape from one of your greatest possible
duties and one of your greatest possible pleasures? You have the
remarkable fortune to possess a friend named Athanasius; you have in
addition, the strange fate to be his godfather by secondary baptism;
and you would, after these unparalleled chances, be the sole renegade
from the vow which you have extracted from the others."

The words were uncivil and rude, the hand was on my shoulder like
a vise; but there floated into my head a recollection of one of the
pleasantest evenings I have ever enjoyed.

We were dining with James Grandstone, one of my young friends. I have