a morsel of iced cake:  at the same time he produced an old-fashioned, long-waisted champagne-glass, nicked at the rim and quite without a stand.  Filling this from his bowl, he drank to the health of the waitress with the easiest politeness it was ever my lot to see.  Ragged as a beggar of Murillo’s, courteous as a hidalgo by Velasquez, he added a grace and an epicurism completely French.  I thought him the best possible figure-head for that opulent spot, cradle of the hilarity of the world.  I gave him five francs.

[Illustration:  Mac Meurtrier.]

We proceeded to admire the town.  The great curiosities of Epernay, its glory and pomp, are not permitted to see the daylight.  They are subterranean and introverted.  They are the cellars.  Those rich colonnades of Commerce street, all those porticoes surmounted with Greek or Roman triangles in the nature of pediments, of what antique religion are they the representations?  They are cellar-doors.

[Illustration:  The black Domino.]

It was impossible to quit the city without visiting its cellars, said Grandstone, and we betook ourselves under his guidance to one of the most renowned.

I only thought of seeing a battle-field of bottles, but I found the Eleusinian mysteries.

[Illustration:  Tam O’SHANTER’S ride.]

In the temple-porch of Eleusis was fixed a large pale face, in the middle parts of which a red nose was glowing like a fuse.  Several other personages, in company with this visage, received us on our approach with a world of solemn and terrifying signals.

Directly a man in a cloak and slouched hat, and holding in his hands a wire fencing-mask, extinguished with it the red nose.  The latter met his fate with stolid fortitude.  All were perfectly still, but the twitching cheeks of most of the spectators betrayed a laugh retained with difficulty.  The cloak then advanced, like a less beautiful Norma, to a bell in the portico, and struck three tragical strokes.  A strong, pealing bass voice came from the interior:  “Who dares knock at this door?”

“A night-bird,” said the man in the cloak, who took the part of spokesman.  “What has the night-bird to do with the eagle?” replied the strong voice.  “What can there be in common between the heathen in his blindness and the Ancient of the Mountain throned in power and splendor?”

“Grand Master, it is in that splendor the new-comer wishes to plunge.”  After this imitation of some Masonic mystery the red-nosed man was quickly taken by the shoulders and hurtled in at the door, where a flare of red theatrical fire illuminated his sudden plunge.

“What nonsense is this?” I said to Athanasius.

“The man in the iron mask,” he explained, “is in that respect what we shall all be in a minute.  Without such a protector, in passing amongst the first year’s bottles we might receive a few hits in the face.”