"'Yes.'
"'What?'
"'Well, Valpocelli of '82.' That was the best wine in their cellar, and cost ten lire a bottle.
"'Is there anything better than that?' he demanded.
"'Yes, Valpocelli of '71. Thirty lire a bottle. They haven't a drop of it here or anywhere else.'
"Auguste, who had been half-paralyzed when we sat down, and who, in his bewilderment, had not heard the conversation, reached over and placed the ordinary Chianti included in the price of the dinner at my elbow.
"The man raised his eyes, looked at August with a peculiar expression, amounting almost to disgust, on his face, and said:
"'I didn't order that. Take that stuff away and bring me a bottle of '82—a quart, mind you—if you haven't the '71.'
"All through the dinner he talked in monosyllables, answering my questions but offering few topics of his own; and although I did my best to draw him out, he made no statement of any kind that would give me the slightest clew as to his antecedents or that would lead up either to his occupation or his purpose in seeking me out. He didn't seem to wish to conceal anything about himself, although of course I asked him no personal questions, nor did he pump me about my affairs. He was just one of those dull, lifeless conversationalists who must be probed all the time to get anything out of. Before I was half through the dinner I wondered why I had bothered about him at all.
"All this time the fellows were off in one corner watching the whole affair. When Auguste brought the '82, looking like a huge tear bottle dug up from where it had rusted for two thousand years, Roscoff gave a gasp and crossed the room to tell Billy Wood that I had struck a millionnaire who was going to buy everything I had painted, including my big picture for the Salon, all of which was about as close as that idiot Roscoff ever got to anything.