"Three things I require," he said.

"A watch, a pocket-handkerchief and a hat.

Is there here among my visitors any person so gracious as to lend me these trifles?
I will not injure them, ladies and gentlemen.

I will only pound the watch in my mortar--burn the _mouchoir_ in my lamp, and make a pudding in the _chapeau_.

And, with all this, I engage to return them to their proprietors, better as new." There was a pause, and a laugh.