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Rh stables last week, and you know how much I coveted that pretty little beast."

A second look showed Hardy that the bottle was of peculiar shape and peculiarly stoppered, and he asked the question which he saw the Prince was ready to answer.

"You remember the trip to Florence to which I owe the pleasure of your acquaintance? Well, I had another reason beside my interest in the Santa Croce festival. You have heard of the Monastery of La Certosa, out on the Galluzzo road, beyond your hospital? The government had abolished it, and there was a store of valuable wine to be put up at auction, including a few bottles of Pantinelli. Fate has seemed to be against my getting any of that wine, until to-day. I have tried for years to get one small bottle, but never yet have tasted it. Pantinelli was a rich old banker in Genoa, who owned a vineyard on the sunny slopes of the Riviera di Ponente. He never sold his wine, but presented it to his friends, and, as he was a cousin of Luigi di Folengo, of whose hatred for me I have already told you, he, naturally, never included me in his list of beneficiaries.

"There was nothing peculiar in the appearance of Pantinelli's wine, but it was invariably put up in bottles just like this. He was an eccentric old fellow, and always corked his bottles by means of this peculiar device, which he claimed to have invented. He gave as a reason for his oddity the belief that if he used the customary seal his friends would keep his beverage for years unopened, without discovering its flavor, and that he meant them to taste its superiority at once on receipt. He seems to have relied on his friends themselves to prevent the fraudulent substitution of another wine, which would, in his queer bottles, have brought an enormous price. However, any one lucky enough to receive a bottle of the famous beverage usually followed the old man's request to the letter, and drank it the same day.

"This afternoon, while you slept, a messenger brought this bottle with a message from Luigi di Folengo, expressing the wish that we might live in amity hereafter, and begging the acceptance of a gift which he believed that I, more than any one else in all Italy would appreciate, a flask of genuine Pantinelli.

"Now, I do not absolutely know that the wine he sent is poisoned,