I rapped the end of my walking-cane on the table and summoned a waiter from whom I ordered coffee.

I then lighted a cigar, and imitating Ferrari's easy posture, smoked also.

Something in my attitude then appeared to strike him, for he laid down his paper and again looked at me, this time with more interest and something of uneasiness.

"Ca commence, mon ami!" I thought, but I turned my head slightly aside and feigned to be absorbed in the view.

My coffee was brought--I paid for it and tossed the waiter an unusually large gratuity--he naturally found it incumbent upon him to polish my table with extra zeal, and to secure all the newspapers, pictorial or otherwise, that were lying about, for the purpose of obsequiously depositing them in a heap at my right hand.