"Nevertheless, Marquis, you claim——'
"'That secret, Monsieur de Fontenelle, I stole; and to punish me for the theft they sentenced me to the punishment of having all my fingers torn off. After pulling off the first finger, they offered to pardon me, if I consented to restore the phial I had stolen. I told them where it was hidden. But I had taken the precaution beforehand to change the contents, having poured the elixir into another phial.'
"'So that, at the cost of one of your fingers, you have purchased a kind of immortality.... Of which you propose to make use. Eh, Marquis,' said Monsieur de Fontenelle.
"'As soon as I shall have put my affairs in order,' I answered; 'that is to say, in about a couple of years.'
"'You're going to make use of it to live again?'
"'In the year of grace 1921.'
"My story caused Monsieur de Fontenelle the greatest amusement; and in taking leave of me, he promised to relate it in his Memoirs as a proof of my lively imagination—and doubtless, as he said to himself, of my insanity."
Maître Delarue paused to take breath and looked round the circle with questioning eyes.
Marco Dario, of Genoa, threw back his head and laughed. The Russian showed his white teeth. The two Anglo-Saxons seemed greatly amused.
"Rather a joke," said George Errington, of London, with a chuckle.