Meanwhile more students had come in, and more kept coming. Hats and caps cropped up rapidly wherever there were pegs to hang them on, and the talking became fast and furious.
I soon found that everybody knew everybody at the Café Procope, and that the specialty of the establishment was dominoes--just as the specialty of the Café de la Régence is chess. There were games going on before long at almost every table, and groups of lookers-on gathered about those who enjoyed the reputation of being skilful players.
Gradually breakfast after breakfast emerged from some mysterious nether world known only to the waiters, and the war of dominoes languished.
"These are all students, of course," I said presently, "and yet, though I meet a couple of hundred fellows at our hospital lectures, I don't see a face I know."
"You would find some by this time, I dare say, in the other room," replied Müller. "I brought you in here that you might sit at Voltaire's table, and eat your steak under the shadow of Voltaire's bust; but this salon is chiefly frequented by law-students--the other by medical and art students. Your place, mon chér, as well as mine, is in the outer sanctuary."
"That infernal Martial!" groaned one of the domino-players at the other end of the table. "So ends the seventh game, and here we are still. Parbleu! Horace, hasn't that absinthe given you an inconvenient amount of appetite?"
"Alas! my friend--don't mention it. And when the absinthe is paid for, I haven't a sou."
"My own case precisely. What's to be done?"
"Done!" echoed Horace, pathetically. "Shade of Apicius! inspire me...but, no--he's not listening."
"Hold! I have it. We'll make our wills in one another's favor, and die."