A SUBMARINE DINNER PARTY.
Some time ago the labor of deepening the harbor of Ciotat was completed. To celebrate the completion of his labor, and to make the occasion memorable, the contractor gave to the members of his staff and the representatives of the press a banquet unprecedented for its originality. The table was set eight metres below the level of the sea, at the very bottom of the harbor, inside the "caisson" in which the excavators had been at work, and only the narrow walls of this caisson separated the guests from the enormous mass of water around and above their heads. The new-fashioned banqueting-hall was splendidly decorated and lighted, and but for a certain buzzing in the ears, caused by the pressure of air kept up in the chamber in order to prevent the inrush of water, nobody would have suspected that the slightest interruption in the working of the air-pump would have sufficed to asphyxiate the whole party. After the banquet an improvised concert prolonged the festivity for several hours, after which the guests reascended into the open air.