Then followed Cicero's oration against Verres, and he was just beginning a speech of Chatham's when the landlord surrendered at discretion.
When, after the lapse of three hours and twenty-five minutes, the fat man held his bill toward him, and Buttons offered five francs, he did not even remonstrate, but took the money, and hastily receipting the bill with his pencil, darted from the room.
"Well," exclaimed the Senator, when he had recovered from the effects of the scene--"I never before realized the truth of a story I once heard."
"What was the story?"
"Oh, it was about a bet between a Yankee and a Frenchman, who could talk the longest. The two were shut up in a room. They remained there three days. At the end of that time their friends broke open the door and entered, and what do you think they found there?"
"Nobody?" suggested the fat man.
"No," said the Senator, with a glow of patriotic pride on his fine face. "But they found the Frenchman lying dead upon the floor, and the Yankee whispering in his ear the beginning of the second part of the Higgins story."
"And what is the Higgins story?"
"For Heaven's sake," gasped the Doctor, starting up, "don't ask him now--wait till next week!"
As they passed over the Mountains of Auvergne a new member was added to the Dodge Club.