"You old fraud!" I said when he bobbed up back of me, and I pinched his leg, "is that what you call letting it flow in rivulets?"
You see, gentlemen, my condition was growing dangerous. And all of a sudden I felt my heart expanding. I had to talk. I simply had to talk. So I struck my glass madly for silence.
"For heaven's sake--keep quiet!" my bride--I beg your pardon, my wife--whispered in my ear.
But even if it cost me my life I had to talk.
What I said was reported to me afterwards, and if my authorities tell the truth, it was something like the following:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am no longer young. But I do not regret that at all, for maturity also hath its joys. And if anybody were to assert that youth can be happy only when wedded to youth, I would say, 'An infamous lie! I myself am proof of the contrary. For I am no longer young, but I am going to make my young wife happy because my wife is an angel--and I have a loving heart--yea, I swear I have a loving heart, and whoever says that here underneath my waistcoat--there beats no loving heart--to him--I would like to lay bare my heart----'"
At this point, according to reports, my words were choked by tears, and in the middle of my abject outpourings I was hustled from the room.
When I awoke I was lying on a couch much too short for me, with all kinds of fur collars and caps and woollen wraps thrown over me. My neck was strained, my legs numb.
I looked around.