smote it a resounding smack with the palm of his left hand.
"Aha!" he roared, as all turned to look at him.
"Disgustin' bounder," remarked Reginald Rupert very distinctly, as, with a second shout of "Aha!" Rivoli did the same with the left biceps and right hand, and then bunched the vast pectoralis major muscles of his chest.
"Magnifique:" cried Légionnaire Edouard Malvin, who was laying out his patron's uniform from his paquetage, preparatory to helping him to dress.
"As thou sayest, my gallo, 'C'est magnifique,'" replied Luigi Rivoli, and for five minutes contracted, flexed, and slapped the great muscles of his arms, shoulders, and chest.
"Come hither—thou little bambino Malvin, thou Bad Wine, thou Cattevo Vino Francese, and stand behind me. ... What of the back? Canst thou see the 'bull's head' as I set the trapezius, rhomboideus, and latissimus dorsi muscles?"
"As clearly as I see your own head, Main de Fer," replied the Austrian in affected astonishment and wonder. "It is the World's Most Wonderful Back! Why, were Maxick and Saldo, Hackenschmidt, the three Saxons, Sandow—yea—Samson and Hercules themselves here, all would be humiliated and envious."
"Aha!" again bawled Rivoli, "thou art right, piccolo porco," and, sinking to a squatting position upon his raised heels, he rose and fell like a jack-in-the-box for some time, before rubbing and smiting his huge thighs and calves to the accompaniment of explosive shouts. Thereafter, he fell upon his hands and
