"Don't mention it. I see it is nearly dinner time; will you have dinner with me? I know of a select restaurant where the viands and wines are admirable."
Pierre cordially thanked him, and taking up his hat and stick proceeded to follow him out of the room. Before doing so, however, he allowed his cigarette case to fall noiselessly on a duster which lay partly hidden by the table. On leaving the room, Paul turned round and locked the door, and the two left the house together.
"Allow me to offer you one of my cigarettes," said Pierre, as they stood in the portico waiting for a fiacre.
"With pleasure, mon ami."
"Diable!" exclaimed Pierre, fumbling in vain for his cigarette case. "What have I done with it? Oh, I remember, I left it in your laboratory. Pray don't trouble to go back," he added, as Paul turned round to enter the house. "Give me the keys, I can find it much quicker than you can, as I know exactly where I left it in the laboratory. I will be back in a moment."
Suspecting nothing, Paul handed him his bunch of keys, and Pierre ran upstairs. He entered the room, shutting the door after him, and then, rapidly placing a pair of steps against the shelves he took down the bottle which Paul had pointed out. Quick as lightning he poured half the contents into an empty bottle which happened to be lying on the table, and returned the rest to its place on the shelf. Picking up his cigarette case, together with the syringe which Paul had shown him, he slipped them into his pocket, locked the door after him, and ran down to his friend.
"I must apologise for keeping you so long," said Pierre with superb effrontery, "but I could not find it at first as it had dropped on to the floor, but here it is," and so saying he offered him a cigarette.
The fiacre coming up at this moment they adjourned to the "Restaurant Joseph" for dinner.
Of all the restaurants in Paris there is none that quite comes up to "Joseph's." Monsieur Joseph was more than a great chef, he was a genius. To his way of thinking there was no art or science in the world that could compare with his. "What poetry could be mentioned in the same breath with a great dinner," he would exclaim. "And as to science, we know that Newton, Leibnitz, Fresnel, Laplace, Pasteur, and the rest of them achieved great things, but compared with the victories of Béchamel, Robert, Rechaud, Carême, and Mérillion, they are rien, monsieur, rien du tout. You boast to me of the moral courage of the Christian martyrs who faced death in the arena of the Coliseum rather than offer incense to Cæsar; but their courage cannot be mentioned in the same breath with that of Vatel, the cook of the great Condé. Did any of them bid adieu to life in the superb manner of Vatel? Ah! there was a hero for you. He actually put an end to himself because a fish he had ordered arrived too late for his master's banquet. What a magnificent example to set! How sublime his end!"