"
And, drawing a great white handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his
eyes, blew his nose, and disappeared like a flash through the door which
I held open for him.
I went down to dinner in a chastened mood. The little man had not shown
me before the pathetic side of the freak's life. By asking him to dinner
as if he were normal I had earned his eternal gratitude. And yet, with
a smile, which I trust the Recording Angel when he makes up my final
balance-sheet of good and evil will not ascribe to an unfeeling heart,
I could not help formulating the hope that his gratitude would not be
shown by presents of China fowls sitting on eggs, Tyrolese chalets and
bottles with ladders and little men inside them. I did not feel within
me the wide charity of Lola Brandt; and I could not repress a smile, as
I ate my solitary meal, at the perils of the adventure to which I was
invited. I had no doubt that it bore the same relation to danger as
Monsieur Saupiquet's sevenpence-halfpenny bore to a serious debt.
Colonel Bunnion, a genial little red-faced man, with bulgy eyes and
a moustache too big for his body, who sat, also solitary, at the next
table to mine, suddenly began to utter words which I discovered were
addressed to me.
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