Platzoff having asked Ducie to excuse him for five minutes, passed through the second doorway, and left the Captain to an undisturbed survey of the room.  He came back in a few minutes, but so transformed in outward appearance that Ducie scarcely knew him.  He had left the room in the full evening costume of an English gentleman:  he came back in the turban and flowing robes of a follower of the Prophet.  But however comfortable his Eastern habit might be, M. Platzoff lacked the quiet dignity and grave repose of your genuine Turkish gentleman.

“I am going to smoke one of these hookahs; let me recommend you to try another,” said Platzoff as he squatted himself cross-legged on the divan.

He touched a tiny gong, and Cleon entered.

“Select a hookah for Monsieur Ducie, and prepare it.”

So Cleon, having chosen a pipe, tipped it with a new amber mouthpiece, charged the bowl with fragrant Turkish tobacco, handed the stem to Ducie, and then applied the light.  The same service was next performed for his master.  Then he withdrew, but only to reappear a minute or two later with coffee served up in the Oriental fashion—­black and strong, without sugar or cream.

“This is one of my little smoke-nights,” said Platzoff as soon as they were alone.  “Last night was one of my big smoke-nights.”

“You speak a language I do not understand.”

“I call those occasions on which I smoke opium my big smoke-nights.”

“Can it be true that you are an opium smoker?” said Ducie.

“It can be and is quite true that I am addicted to that so-called pernicious habit.  To me it is one of the few good things this world has to offer.  Opium is the key that unlocks the golden gates of Dreamland.  To its disciples alone is revealed the true secret of subjective happiness.  But we will talk more of this at some future time.”

CHAPTER XII.

THE AMSTERDAM EDITION OF 1698.

Captain Ducie soon fell into the quiet routine of life at Bon Repos.  It was not distasteful to him.  To a younger man it might have seemed to lack variety, to have impinged too closely on the verge of dulness; but Captain Ducie had reached that time of life when quiet pleasures please the most, and when much can be forgiven the man who sets before you a dinner worth eating.  Not that Ducie had anything to forgive.  Platzoff had contracted a great liking for his guest, and his hospitality was of that cordial quality which makes the object of it feel himself thoroughly at home.  Besides this, the Captain knew when he was well off, and had no wish to exchange his present pleasant quarters, his rambles across the hills, and his sailings on the lake, for his dingy bed-room in town with the harassing, hunted down life of a man upon whom a dozen writs are waiting to be served, and who can never feel certain that his next day’s dinner may not be eaten behind the locks and bars of a prison.