Page:Magician 1908.djvu/43

 The unlucky creature, thus brutally attacked, blushed feebly without answering, and Haddo went on to the Frenchman, Meyer, as more worthy of his mocking.

“I’m afraid my entrance interrupted you in a discourse. Was it the celebrated harangue on the greatness of Michael Angelo, or was it the searching analysis of the art of Wagner?”

“We were just going,” said Meyer, getting up with a frown.

“I am desolated to lose the pearls of wisdom that habitually fall from your cultivated lips,” returned Haddo, as he politely withdrew Madame Meyer’s chair.

He sat down with a smile.

“I saw the place was crowded, and with Napoleonic instinct decided that I could only make room by insulting somebody. It is cause for congratulation that my gibes, which Raggles, a foolish youth, mistakes for wit, have caused the disappearance of a person who lives in open sin; thereby vacating two seats, and allowing me to eat a humble meal with ample room for my elbows.”

Marie brought him the bill of fare, and he looked at it gravely.

“I will have a vanilla ice, oh well-beloved, and the wing of a tender chicken, a fried sole, and some excellent pea-soup.”

“Bien, un potage, une sole, one chicken, and an ice.”

“But why should you serve them in that order rather than in the order I gave you?”