"Clever?"
"That is a point upon which I could not venture an opinion. You must ask some more competent judge."
"Come, now," said I, shaking my head, and trying to look knowing; "you--you know what I mean, well enough. Is he a grim old fellow? A--a--griffin, you know! Come, is he a gr--r--r--riffin?"
My words had by this time acquired a distressing, self-propelling tendency, and linked themselves into compounds of twenty and thirty syllables.
My vis-à-vis smiled, bit his lip, then laughed a dry, short laugh.
"Really," he said, "I am not in a position to reply to your question; but upon the whole, I should say that Dr. Chéron was not quite a griffin. The species, you see, is extinct."
I roared with laughter; vowed I had never heard a better joke in my life; and repeated his last words over and over, like a degraded idiot as I was. All at once a sense of deadly faintness came upon me. I turned hot and cold by turns, and lifting my hand to my head, said, or tried to say:--
"Room's--'bominably--close!"
"We had better go," he replied promptly. "The air will do you good. Leave me to settle for our dinners, and you shall make it right with me by-and-by."
He did so, and we left the room. Once out in the open air I found myself unable to stand. He called a fiacre; almost lifted me in; took his place beside me, and asked the name of my hotel.