"That depends on how I feel," I replied.
"Well said. I have not done so since 1866. I swore off. A row. The devil of a party. One day at Walewski's. I cut fives. Naturally I wasn't worrying any. The other had a four. 'Idiot!' cried the little Baron de Chaux Gisseux who was laying staggering sums on my table. I hurled a bottle of champagne at his head. He ducked. It was Marshal Baillant who got the bottle. A scene! The matter was fixed up because we were both Free Masons. The Emperor made me promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my promise not to cut fives again. I have kept my promise. But there are moments when it is hard...."
He added in a voice steeped in melancholy:
"Try a little of this Ahaggar 1880. Excellent vintage. It is I, Lieutenant, who instructed these people in the uses of the juice of the vine. The vine of the palm trees is very good when it is properly fermented, but it gets insipid in the long run."
It was powerful, that Ahaggar 1880. We sipped it from large silver goblets. It was fresh as Rhine wine, dry as the wine of the Hermitage. And then, suddenly, it brought back recollections of the burning wines of Portugal; it seemed sweet, fruity, an admirable wine, I tell you.
That wine crowned the most perfect of luncheons. There were few meats, to be sure; but those few were remarkably seasoned. Profusion of cakes, pancakes served with honey, fragrant fritters, cheese-cakes of sour milk and dates. And everywhere, in great enamel platters or wicker jars, fruit, masses of fruit, figs, dates, pistachios, jujubes, pomegranates, apricots, huge bunches of grapes, larger than those which bent the shoulders of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, heavy watermelons cut in two, showing their moist, red pulp and their rows of black seeds.
I had scarcely finished one of these beautiful iced fruits, when M. Le Mesge rose.
"
Gentlemen, if you are ready," he said to Morhange and me.
"Get away from that old dotard as soon as you can," whispered the Hetman of Jitomir to me. "The party of Trente et Quarante will begin soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at Cora Pearl's."