For a moment or two Labordette conceived the idea of denouncing different women in a whisper to La Faloise, who still went prowling round each individual lady, looking to see if she were hiding his handkerchief in her bosom.

Soon, as there were still some bottles of champagne on the sideboard, the young men again fell to drinking.

They shouted to one another; they stirred each other up, but a dreary species of intoxication, which was stupid enough to drive one to despair, began to overcome the company beyond hope of recovery.

Then the little fair-haired fellow, the man who bore one of the greatest names in France and had reached his wit's end and was desperate at the thought that he could not hit upon something really funny, conceived a brilliant notion: he snatched up his bottle of champagne and poured its contents into the piano.

His allies were convulsed with laughter.
"La now! Why's he putting champagne into the piano ?" asked Tatan Nene in great astonishment as she caught sight of him.
"What, my lass, you don't know why he's doing that ?" replied Labordette solemnly.