“Then for you the world is a zoological garden?”
“Well, isn’t it?”
At midnight they tried to break the glass jar of bonbons. They blindfolded various men, and one by one they made them turn around a couple of times and then try to break the jar with a stick.
It was the Marquis Sciacca that did break the glass vase, and the pieces fell on his head.
“Have you hurt yourself?” people asked him.
“No,” said Cæsar, reassuringly, but aside; “his head is protected.”
CHIROMANTIC INTERLUDE
After this cornucopia number, there was a series of other games and amusements, which required a hand-glass, a candle, and a bottle. The conversation in Mlle. de Sandoval’s group jumped from one thing to another and finally arrived at palmistry.
Mlle. de Sandoval asked Cæsar if he, as a Spaniard, knew how to tell fortunes by the hand, and he jokingly replied that he did. Three or four hands were stretched out toward Cæsar, and he said whatsoever his imagination suggested, foolishness, absurdities, impertinences; a little of everything.
When anybody was a bit puzzled at Cæsar’s words, he said: