“I thought that sort of accidents never happened except to persons of intelligence,” I said to myself.
“You’ve drunk too much Collioure, my dear Monsieur Alphonse,” I said to him. “I warned you.”
“Yes, perhaps. But this is something much more dreadful.”
His voice was broken. I really thought he was drunk.
“You know my ring?” he continued after a pause.
“What! Has it been taken away?”
“No.”
“Then you have it, have you not?”
“No ... I ... I can’t get it off that devil of a Venus’s finger.”
“A fine story! You’ve not pulled hard enough.”