A Negro waiter set before me a superb fish covered with a pimento sauce as red as tomatoes.

I have explained that I was ravenously hungry.  The dish was exquisite.  The sauce immediately made me thirsty.

“White Ahaggar, 1879,” the Herman of Jitomir breathed in my ear as he filled my goblet with a clear topaz liquid.  “I developed it myself:  rien pour la tete, tout pour les jambes.”

I emptied the goblet at a gulp.  The company began to seem charming.

“Well, Captain Morhange,” Le Mesge called out to my comrade who had taken a mouthful of fish, “what do you say to this acanthopterygian?  It was caught to-day in the lake in the oasis.  Do you begin to admit the hypothesis of the Saharan sea?”

“The fish is an argument,” my companion replied.

Suddenly he became silent.  The door had opened.  A white Targa entered.  The diners stopped talking.

The veiled man walked slowly toward Morhange and touched his right arm.

“Very well,” said Morhange.

He got up and followed the messenger.

The pitcher of Ahaggar, 1879, stood between me and Count Bielowsky.  I filled my goblet—­a goblet which held a pint, and gulped it down.

The Hetman looked at me sympathetically.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Le Mesge, nudging me with his elbow.  “Antinea has respect for the hierarchic order.”

The Reverend Spardek smiled modestly.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Le Mesge again.

My glass was empty.  For a moment I was tempted to hurl it at the head of the Fellow in History.  But what of it?  I filled it and emptied it again.

“Morhange will miss this delicious roast of mutton,” said the Professor, more and more hilarious, as he awarded himself a thick slice of meat.

“He won’t regret it,” said the Hetman crossly.  “This is not roast; it is ram’s horn.  Really Koukou is beginning to make fun of us.”

“Blame it on the Reverend,” the shrill voice of Le Mesge cut in.  “I have told him often enough to hunt other proselytes and leave our cook alone.”

“Professor,” Spardek began with dignity.

“I maintain my contention,” cried Le Mesge, who seemed to me to be getting a bit overloaded.  “I call the gentleman to witness,” he went on, turning to me.  “He has just come.  He is unbiased.  Therefore I ask him:  has one the right to spoil a Bambara cook by addling his head with theological discussions for which he has no predisposition?”

“Alas!” the pastor replied sadly.  “You are mistaken.  He has only too strong a propensity to controversy.”

“Koukou is a good-for-nothing who uses Colas’ cow as an excuse for doing nothing and letting our scallops burn,” declared the Hetman.  “Long live the Pope!” he cried, filling the glasses all around.

“I assure you that this Bambara worries me,” Spardek went on with great dignity.  “Do you know what he has come to?  He denies transubstantiation.  He is within an inch of the heresy of Zwingli and Oecolampades.  Koukou denies transubstantiation.”