He assumed the expression for a moment of one astutely drunk.

“A bas!” he said, for this much of the French language was his to command, and no more.  He turned and attempted to look out.  He yawned.  Presently he threw away the reeking butt of his cigar, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

The water below the veranda was alive with struggling fishes in high hats and frock-coats.  Each fish had a label painted across his back with his name and address neatly printed on it, and each fish was struggling to reach a tiny minnow-hook, naked of bait, which dangled just out of reach above the water.  The baitless hook was connected by a fine line (who ever heard of baiting a line at the wrong end?) with Margaret’s hand.  She had on a white dress stamped with big pink roses, and there was a pale-green ribbon round the middle of it; her hair was done up for the first time, and she was leaning over the railing, which was made of safety-lamps and stranglers alternately, painted light blue, regarding the struggling fishes with a look at once full of curiosity and pity.  Presently one of the fishes’ labels soaked off, and went hurtling out to sea, with the fish weeping bitterly and following at express speed, until in less than one moment both label and fish were hull down below the horizon.  Then another label washed off, and then another and another, and fish after fish, in varying states of distraction, followed after and disappeared, until all you could see were two, whereof the one was labeled Manners and the other O’Brien (these continued to fight for the hook), and all you could hear was Neptune, from down, down, down in the sea, saying coquettishly to Cleopatra, “I’m Red Renard—­so called from my hair.”  And then all of a sudden valiant Captain Kissed-by-Margaret went by on a log writing mottos for the wives of famous men.  And then Manners and O’Brien, struggling desperately to drown each other, sank down, down, down, and Cleopatra could be heard saying perfectly logically to Neptune, “You didn’t!” And then there was a tremendous shower of roses, and the dream went out like a candle.

Aladdin opened his eyes and stroked his chin.  He was troubled about the dream.  The senator had spoken to him of “others.”  Could Peter Manners possibly be there?  Was that the especial demolishment that fate held in store for him?  He was very wide awake now.

At times, owing to the opaqueness of the storm, it was impossible to see out of the car window.  But there were moments when a sudden rush of wind blew a path for the eye, and by such occasional pictures—­little long of the instantaneous—­one could follow the progress of the blizzard.  Aladdin saw a huddle of sheep big with snow; then a man getting into a house by the window; an ancient apple-tree with a huge limb torn off; two telegraph poles that leaned toward each other, like one man fixing another’s cravat; and he caught glimpses of wires broken, loosened,