Those ladies--" He addressed himself to the resuscitation of his cigar.

"Singular people in this country," he resumed; but his cigar would not revive.

He was a poor story-teller.

To Frowenfeld--as it would have been to any one, except a Creole or the most thoroughly Creoleized Americain--his narrative, when it was done, was little more than a thick mist of strange names, places and events; yet there shone a light of romance upon it that filled it with color and populated it with phantoms.

Frowenfeld's interest rose--was allured into this mist--and there was left befogged.