"I suppose," the Englishman at last went on, shivering his mustache, "you mean to tell me I am not to have a baked apple—?"
"Perhaps for dinner—one of the eating kind could be baked—"
The Englishman suddenly hurled his napkin on his plate. He stood. "No baked apple," he said. "Well!"
He intended to stalk from the room.
However, Paul—who had at first been chortling over the slow-spilled tray and later watching the Englishman with intent, even exaggerated, care—now interposed, to my great surprise.
He sat next to the Britisher—on the same banquette. Thus when the infuriated man surged upright he stood alongside Paul and between our two tables.
Paul stretched out his foot, rested his shoe on the corner of the Englishman's table, and untied the lace.
The man, barred by the long leg, said, "Good Gad!"
Paul retied the lace. He looked dimly at the Englishman—who, I honestly believe, had not so much as noticed or recalled a single person in the room but himself all during the baked apple affair. It is a kind of concentration peculiar to the British.