His large greyish eyes watched mine with an inscrutable expression.

It was a bit of a shock to me to find this great teacher gave his mind to the flavour of liqueurs.  However, I feigned an interest in his weakness, for I was drunk enough for such small sycophancy.

He parted the powder between the little glasses, and, rising suddenly, with a strange unexpected dignity, held out his hand towards me.  I imitated his action, and the glasses rang.  “To a quick succession,” said he, and raised his glass towards his lips.

“Not that,” I said hastily.  “Not that.”

He paused with the liqueur at the level of his chin, and his eyes blazing into mine.

“To a long life,” said I.

He hesitated.  “To a long life,” said he, with a sudden bark of laughter, and with eyes fixed on one another we tilted the little glasses.  His eyes looked straight into mine, and as I drained the stuff off, I felt a curiously intense sensation.  The first touch of it set my brain in a furious tumult; I seemed to feel an actual physical stirring in my skull, and a seething humming filled my ears.  I did not notice the flavour in my mouth, the aroma that filled my throat; I saw only the grey intensity of his gaze that burnt into mine.  The draught, the mental confusion, the noise and stirring in my head, seemed to last an interminable time.  Curious vague impressions of half-forgotten things danced and vanished on the edge of my consciousness.  At last he broke the spell.  With a sudden explosive sigh he put down his glass.

“Well?” he said.

“It’s glorious,” said I, though I had not tasted the stuff.

My head was spinning.  I sat down.  My brain was chaos.  Then my perception grew clear and minute as though I saw things in a concave mirror.  His manner seemed to have changed into something nervous and hasty.  He pulled out his watch and grimaced at it.  “Eleven-seven!  And to-night I must—­ Seven-twenty-five.  Waterloo!  I must go at once.”  He called for the bill, and struggled with his coat.  Officious waiters came to our assistance.  In another moment I was wishing him good-bye, over the apron of a cab, and still with an absurd feeling of minute distinctness, as though—­how can I express it?—­I not only saw but felt through an inverted opera-glass.

“That stuff,” he said.  He put his hand to his forehead.  “I ought not to have given it to you.  It will make your head split to-morrow.  Wait a minute.  Here.”  He handed me out a little flat thing like a seidlitz-powder.  “Take that in water as you are going to bed.  The other thing was a drug.  Not till you’re ready to go to bed, mind.  It will clear your head.  That’s all.  One more shake—­Futurus!”

I gripped his shrivelled claw.  “Good-bye,” he said, and by the droop of his eyelids I judged he too was a little under the influence of that brain-twisting cordial.

He recollected something else with a start, felt in his breast-pocket, and produced another packet, this time a cylinder the size and shape of a shaving-stick.  “Here,” said he.  “I’d almost forgotten.  Don’t open this until I come to-morrow—­but take it now.”