Gannot gently checked him with his hand, and told him to moderate his transports of gratitude.
"Ah! now," he said, "we can indeed go and have a glass of punch, can we not?"
"A glass of punch? A bowl, my friend, two bowls! As much as ever you like, and havanas ad libitum! I am rich; when my bill of exchange is paid, my watch redeemed, I shall still have ..."
"You have told me all that before."
"Upon my word, I am so pleased I cannot repeat it often enough, dear friend!" And the young man gave himself up to shouts of immoderate joy, whilst Gannot regally climbed the stairs which led to the Hollandais, the only one left open after midnight. It was full. Gannot called for the waiters. One waiter appeared. "I asked for the waiters," said Gannot. He fetched three who were in the ice-house and they roused up two who had already gone to bed—fifteen came in all. Gannot counted them.
"Good!" he said. "Now, waiters, go from table to table and ask the gentlemen and ladies at them what they would like to take."
"Then, monsieur ..."
"I will pay for it!" Gannot replied, in lordly tones.
The joke was acceded to and was, indeed, thought to be in very good taste; only the friend laughed at the wrong side of his mouth as he watched the consumption of liqueurs, coffee and glorias. Every table was like a liquid volcano, with lava of punch flowing out of the middle of its flames. The tables filled up again and the new arrivals were invited by the amphitryon to choose whatever they liked from the carte; ices, liqueurs, syphons of lemonade, everything, even to soda-water. Finally, at three o'clock, when there was not a single glass of brandy left in the establishment, Gannot called for the bill. It came to eighteen hundred francs. What about the bill of exchange now?... The young man, feeling more dead than alive, mechanically put his hand into his pocket, although he knew very well that it did not contain more than fifteen hundred francs; but Gannot opened his pocket-book and pulled out two notes of a thousand francs, and blowing them apart—
"Here, waiters," he said, "the change is for your attendance."