They had made him swallow, in a glass, some fearful mixture or other, and he had imperturbably declared that it was in his opinion the wine of Moet:  after this evidence of taste the proof of sight was to follow, and the semicircle of purple faces was quite blackening with bottled laughter, when Grandstone touched me on the shoulder.  My hour for departure was come, and I had not a minute to spare.

[Illustration:  Palace at Strasburg.]

Apparently, the last test of the red nose resulted in a triumph:  as we were effecting our covert and hasty retreat we heard all the voices exclaim in concert, “It is the Pure Illumination!”

Gay as we were on entering the great wine-cellar, we were perfectly Olympian when we came out.  The crypts of these vast establishments, where a soft inspiration perpetually floats upward from the wine in store, often receive a visitor as a Diogenes and dismiss him as an Anacreon.

Our consumption of wine at dinner had been, like Mr. Poe’s conversation with his soul, “serious and sober.”  In the cellar no drop had passed our mouths.  I was alert as a lark when I entered:  I came out in a species of voluptuous dream.

All the band conducted me to the railway-station, and I was very much touched with the attention.  It was who should carry my botany-box, who should set my cap straight, who should give me the most precise and statistical information about the train which returned to Paris, with a stop at Noisy; the while, Ophelia-like, I chanted snatches of old songs, and mingled together in a tender reverie my recollections of Mary Ashburton, my coming Book and my theories of Progressive Geography.

“Take this shawl:  the night will be chilly before you get to the city.”

“Don’t let them carry you beyond Noisy.”

“Come back to Epernay every May-day:  never forget the feast of Saint Athanasius.”

“Be sure you get into the right train:  here is the car.  Come, man, bundle up! they are closing the barrier.”

I was perfectly melted by so much sympathy.  “Adieu,” I said, “my dear champanions—­”

I turned into an excellent car, first class, and fell asleep directly.

Next day I awoke—­at Strasburg!  The convivials of the evening before, making for the Falls of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, had traveled beside me in the adjoining car.

My friends, uncertain how their practical joke would be received, clustered around me.

“Ah, boys,” I said, “I have too many griefs imprisoned in this aching bosom to be much put out by the ordinary ‘Horrid Hoax.’  But you have compromised my reputation.  I promised to meet Hohenfels at Marly:  children, bankruptcy stares me in the face.”

Grandstone had the grace to be a little embarrassed:  “You wished to dine with me at the Feast of Saint Athanasius, but you mistook the day.  Your engineer is the true culprit, for he voluntarily deceived you.  The fact is, my dear Flemming, we have concocted a little conspiracy.  You are a good fellow, a joyful spirit in fact, when you are not in your lubies about the Past and the Future.  We wanted you, we conspired; and, Catiline having stolen you at Noisy, Cethigus tucked you into a car with the intention of making use of you at Schaffhausen.”