"Is that not so, Sir Percy ?" But Sir Percy seemed, whenever his wife's name was mentioned, to lapse into irresistible somnolence.

He yawned now with his usual affectation, and asked at what hour gentlemen in France were wont to breakfast.
Since then Chauvelin had not seen him.

He had repeatedly asked how the English prisoner was faring, and whether he seemed to be sleeping and eating heartily.

The orderly in charge invariably reported that the Englishman seemed well, but did not eat much.

On the other hand, he had ordered, and lavishly paid for, measure after measure of brandy and bottle after bottle of wine.
"Hm! how strange these Englishmen are!" mused Chauvelin; "this so-called hero is nothing but a wine-sodden brute, who seeks to nerve himself for a trying ordeal by drowning his faculties in brandy...