not comin', but you leave that tackle where 'tis. If I'm liable
to pay, I guess I'll have all there is to it."

I have never been in America, and the American public is the
last on earth that I desire to insult; but idiom and intonation
alike would have imposed upon my inexperience. I had to look at
Raffles to make sure that it was he who spoke, and I had my own
reasons for looking hard.

"Who on earth was the lady?" I inquired aghast at the first
opportunity.

"She isn't on earth. They don't like wasting this room on two,
that's all. Bunny--my Bunny--here's to us both!"

And we clinked glasses swimming with the liquid gold of
Steinberg, 1868; but of the rare delights of that supper I can
scarcely trust myself to write. It was no mere meal, it was no
coarse orgy, but a little feast for the fastidious gods, not
unworthy of Lucullus at his worst. And I who had bolted my
skilly at Wormwood Scrubbs, and tightened my belt in a Holloway
attic, it was I who sat down to this ineffable repast! Where
the courses were few, but each a triumph of its kind, it would
be invidious to single out any one dish; but the Jambon de
Westphalie au Champagne tempts me sorely. And then the champagne
that we drank, not the quantity but the quality! Well, it was
Pol Roger, '84, and quite good enough for me; but even so it was
not more dry, nor did it sparkle more, than the merry rascal
who had dragged me thus far to the devil, but should lead me
dancing the rest of the way. I was beginning to tell him so. I