wore on, Fitzgerald remembered having seen Breitmann's name at the foot
of big newspaper stories. The man had traveled everywhere, spoke five
languages, had been a war correspondent, a sailor in the South Seas,
and Heaven knew what else. He had ridden camels and polo ponies in the
Soudan; he had been shot in the Greece-Turkish war, shortly after his
having met Fitzgerald; he had played a part in the recent
Spanish-American, and had fought against the English in the Transvaal.

"And now I am resting," he concluded, turning his chambertin round and
round, giving the effect of a cluster of rubies on the table linen.
"And all my adventures have been as profitable as these," indebted for
the moment to the phantom rubies. "But it's all a great stage, whether
you play behind the wings or before the lights. I am thirty-eight;
into twenty of those years I have crowded a century."

"You don't look it."

"Ah, one does not need to dissipate to live quickly. The life I have
led has kept me in health and vigor. But you? You are not a man who
travels without gaining material."

"I have had a few adventures, something like yours, only not so widely
diversified. I wrote some successful short stories about China once.
I have had some good sport, too, here and there."

"You live well for a newspaper correspondent," suggested Breitmann,
nodding at the bottle of twenty-eight-year-old Burgundy.

"Oh, it's a habit we Americans have," amiably. "We rough it for a few
months on bacon and liver, and then turn our attention to truffles and