"There were, maybe, half a dozen men in the lounge, scattered about
in the armchairs and smoking. By and by, glancing up from my
newspaper, I noticed that two or three had their eyes fixed on me
pretty curiously. One of them--an old boy with a grizzled
moustache--set down his paper, and came slowly across the room.
'Pardon, monsieur,' he said in the politest way, 'but have we the
honour of numbering you amongst our members?' 'Good Lord!' cried I,
sitting up, 'isn't this the _Couronne d'Or?_' 'Pray let monsieur not
discommode himself,' said he, with a quick no-offence sort of smile,
'but he has made a little mistake. This is the _Cercle Militaire_.'

"I must say those French officers were jolly decent about it:
especially when I explained about the Mont-Bazillac. They saw me
back to the hotel in a body; and as we turned in at the porchway, who
should come down the street but Jinks, striding elbows to side, like
a man in a London-to-Brighton walking competition! . . . He told me,
as we found our bedrooms, that '_of course_, he had gone up the hill,
and that the view had been magnificent.' I did not argue about it,
luckily: for--here comes in another queer fact--_there was no moon at
all that night_. Next morning I wheedled two more bottles of the
stuff out of old Sebillot--which leaves him two for the wedding.
I thought that you and I might have some fun with them. . . . Now
tell me _your_ experience."

"That," said I, "must wait until you unlock my tongue; if indeed you
have brought home the genuine Mont-Bazillac."


As it happened, Master Dick was called up to Oxford unexpectedly, a
week before the beginning of term, to start practice in his college