Chapter IX: A Business Agent's Office

Chamoureau occupied a very comfortable apartment on what is called the Carré Saint-Martin, that is to say, the junction of Rue Saint-Martin and the boulevard. There he carried on the profession of business agent; he undertook the purchase or sale of houses, the investment of funds, the recovery of old debts, in short, everything which business agents--_hommes d'affaires_--generally undertake; most of them having passed the examination for admission to the roll of advocates, and some having even assumed that title, they are generally familiar with the laws and with all the tricks of the profession.

Chamoureau did not lack clients, for he had the reputation of being an honorable man, and was one in fact; in his case that quality was an advantageous substitute for cleverness, which unfortunately is not always a guaranty of uprightness. By which we do not mean that a man may not be both a fool and a knave. Nature is sometimes as lavish of evil as of good qualities.

Several persons had already called to confer with the business agent on the morning following the Opéra ball. They had found no one but the woman employed to do his housework, who always found the key at the concierge's lodge. Not finding Chamoureau, she assumed that he had gone out very early on business.

At eight o'clock, a man from the country made his appearance. He seemed to be half-bourgeois, half-peasant; he was about fifty years of age, short and thickset; his head was set low between his shoulders; his features were ugly and without distinction, their only expression being that distrust so customary among country people, who are always suspicious of those who live in cities and believe that they are always trying to cheat them; probably because when they themselves are at home they have no scruples about cheating city folk.

This man asked the concierge if Monsieur Chamoureau, business agent, was at home, and the concierge replied:

"He must be; I haven't seen him go out;" the fact being that he had not seen him come in; but concierges do not always notice the goings and comings of their tenants.

The little stout man started upstairs, but thought better of it and returned to the concierge.

"I say--between you and me--this Monsieur Chamoureau who keeps a real estate office--can I trust him? is he a good business man? You see how it is--I'm from the country, but I don't want to get cheated here in Paris! And, you see, I've heard as how your business agents was as likely as not to be thieves who did their business at the expense of the poor devils who put theirs in their hands."

"Oh! monsieur, you needn't have any fear about Monsieur Chamoureau; he's a very square man! nobody's ever said a word against his honesty. He pays everybody cash--even his baker; he don't owe the least bit of a debt in the quarter!"

"Well, well! that's good enough! and he ain't a woman's man--a rake--a spendthrift?"

"Not at all; he leads a very quiet life and don't put on any airs; he don't stay out too late--always comes home when the theatre's out, when he goes there. To be sure, the theatres keep it up nowadays till an hour that makes it unpleasant for concierges--but still, that ain't Monsieur Chamoureau's fault."

"That's good too! and is he married? has he got a wife and children?"

"No; he was married, but he's been a widower a short time; and he keeps up his regret for his wife, which is very noble on his part; he can't talk about her without crying."

"Oh, well! if he cries for his wife, I see that I can trust him. So I'll just go up and hand over my papers to him. You see, it's about collecting some money for me at some of the departments and from notaries. They told me like this: 'You just give some business agent a power of attorney and he'll attend to it all for you.'--So I had the power of attorney made out with the name left blank; and you think I can safely turn it over to your Monsieur Cha--Chamouilleau?"

"You can, monsieur; you needn't have any fear."

"In that case, I'll go up. Good-day, monsieur le concierge."

The little man arrived at Chamoureau's door on the second floor.

"Monsieur went out early," said the charwoman, "but he'll certainly be back soon; if you'd like to wait, please take a seat."

"I'll wait as long as I've come; I'd rather wait than go back."

The countryman sat down in a sort of reception room lined with shelves which were filled with boxes, all of which gave the room a sort of resemblance to a solicitor's office; only the clerks were lacking. But the sight of boxes and of docketed files of papers always produces a great effect on clients of the type of the little thickset man. He looked around, evidently impressed, and said to himself:

"Yes, yes! this must be a famous business agent; there's lots of papers in them boxes!"

The countryman had been awaiting Chamoureau's return about fifteen minutes, when another person arrived. This was a man of middle age, with a bald head, long face and bumptious manner, who at once reminded one of the Joseph Prudhomme so well delineated by Henri Monnier.

This gentleman, who was dressed all in black, with a white cravat, which did not prevent his having a decidedly dirty look, entered the room with his head in the air, saying:

"I wish to speak at once with Monsieur Chamoureau, business agent; announce me, servant; I am Aimé-Désiré-Jules Beaubichon, professor of bookkeeping; however, your master knows me; I have seen him twice--in this domicile,--concerning the delicate affair, the purport of which I have succinctly laid before him. It relates to the subject of marriage; he has told me of a young woman whose virtue and morals he will answer for; and I am most particular touching those qualifications, provided that a suitable dowry be added to them, the face and form being in my eyes mere superfluities of little importance to a housewife in watching her soup-kettle!--I am disposed to take upon myself the bonds of matrimony once more if all the conditions are in accord with my social position, which, I venture to say, is as honorable as it is lucrative; fifteen hundred francs a year, without counting gifts from pupils--when they make any!"

The servant continued to dust the furniture as she listened to this harangue; when it was at an end, she replied:

"Monsieur Chamoureau went out early; he's sure to be back soon; if you'd like to wait--monsieur here has been waiting a quarter of an hour."

Monsieur Beaubichon cast a sidelong glance at the man from the country, who put his hand to his hat; whereupon the professor concluded to touch his own slightly and to address his companion.

"Is monsieur also awaiting Monsieur Chamoureau?"

"Yes, monsieur, with your permission."

"I have no intention of objecting. Would monsieur care to learn bookkeeping, double or single entry?"

"Me! learn bookkeeping! God bless me! what for?"

"What for? why, in order to know it."

"And what use would it be to me?"

"Why, to keep your books; to have everything down in black and white!"

"In the first place, I haven't got any books--oh, yes! except the _Country Cook_ for the women, and fairy stories for the young ones, and their catechism for 'em to learn their lesson out of; but all of them keep themselves in a closet; there ain't no need for us to learn to keep 'em."

"Dense ignorance!" muttered Monsieur Beaubichon, shrugging his shoulders.--"Then you are not in business, monsieur?" he continued, aloud.

"Oh, yes! I sell wine from my own vines, and fruit from the orchard when there's a good crop!"

"Well, then you must have books to write in--'sold Monsieur So-and-So so much; received from Monsieur Thingumbob so much.'"

"It ain't worth while, for I almost always sell for cash, and then, if anyone does owe me money, why, there ain't no danger of my forgetting it before he pays me."

The professor gave another shrug and began to pace the floor.

"And people say that we are going forward, they declare that our progress is constant! But where is this boasted progress, I pray to know, when this countryman has no ledger wherein to keep a running account with his apricots and his pears!--Servant, your master does not return; a pupil awaits me; I go to place my learning at his service, to instil my knowledge into him. I will return. Beg Monsieur Chamoureau to wait for me, and may he be pregnant with information concerning the marriageable young lady!"

The gentleman in black having retired, the countryman said to the charwoman:

"Who in the devil is that fellow who puffs himself out when he talks, just exactly like a bladder when you blow it up? He looks like a schoolmaster--with his books he wants to learn me to keep. And then I saw how he hoisted up his shoulders and called me 'dirty'[H] under his breath! But just let him come down our way, and I'll bet he don't so much as know how to plant beans or hoe potatoes! All these fellows that put on so many airs in the city ain't good for nothing in the country; they don't know how to use a spade nor yet a pickaxe! But it's my opinion that the man what makes the vegetables grow that you eat deserves to be thought just as much of as that critter what makes scrawls on books."

The servant continued to dust the furniture, nodding her head approvingly.

"I'd like to know if your master, Monsieur Cha--Chabouleau puts on airs and eyes country folks like that crow that just went out; because if he does, why, I wouldn't give him any business of mine, d'ye see."

"No, monsieur, no; never fear. Monsieur Chamoureau is too well-bred not to be polite to everybody, especially his clients. He'd take off his hat to a child two years old, if the child should give him his business."

"All right! but seemin' to me your bourgeois is staying out a long while."

"In Paris, monsieur, one can never be sure how long it will take to do an errand."

"That's so; because there's so many carriages passing--that delays you. Well, here it is raining now!"

"And monsieur didn't bring his umbrella."

"They told me nobody used umbrellas in Paris now, as there's so many busses that folks never walk."

"That's an exaggeration, monsieur; people still go on foot when they prefer to walk."

"They told me that there's going to be a railroad underneath Paris, so's you can take the underground and go quicker when there's too many people on top. That ain't a bad idea.--But, sapristi! the bourgeois don't seem to come back."

Twenty minutes more had passed, when there was a great uproar in the street; hoots and shouts of laughter, and yells from the street urchins. The servant opened a window on that side to ascertain the cause of the tumult.

The _milord_ containing our widower had stopped in front of the house, and before he had had time to alight, a crowd had collected round the cab, because its occupant was in plain sight.

Shouts of _"à la chienlit!"_ went up on all sides. The concierge stood in his doorway, looking on with the rest. Chamoureau, having paid his driver, could hardly force his way through the crowd, which yelled at him:

"Oh! you Spaniard!"

"Just look at him! ain't he dazzling with his spangles!"

"He's a Spaniard--he's a regular sun!"

"But he'll lose his boots; he's treading on 'em!"

At last, by dint of pushing this way and that, Chamoureau reached the door; he tried to enter in a hurry, but the concierge barred the way, saying with an air of importance:

"What do you want? where are you going?"

"What's that? where am I going? Why, to my rooms, parbleu!"

"You have evidently made a mistake; we don't let rooms to buffoons!"

"On my word! this is too much!--How is this, concierge? don't you recognize me--Chamoureau?"

The concierge was stupefied; he could not believe his eyes and his ears; he could not conceive that that sedate and orderly tenant, who always wept when his wife was mentioned, could come home at ten o'clock in the morning, dressed as a Spaniard.

But Chamoureau left him to digest his amazement and hurried upstairs. The servant, who had not recognized her master, had just left the window, saying:

"It's a masker coming home from the ball! The deuce! he has made a night of it and no mistake! this is none too early to come home!"

"Do you mean to say that balls last till the next forenoon?" asked the countryman.

"No, monsieur, they end at daybreak, but after that the maskers go to supper and raise the deuce at wine-shops; three-quarters of 'em get tight and don't go home till they haven't got another sou to spend, like this fellow who's just come into the house, I suppose. I'd like to know who he is. He must be a regular loose fish, to come home from the ball after ten o'clock in the morning. I'll ask the concierge who he is."

The bell rang and the woman ran to open the door.

"This time it's monsieur, sure!" she said.

But seeing before her a man in fancy costume, she was about to prevent his entrance, as the concierge had done. But Chamoureau pushed her aside with some force.

"Are you going to make a fool of yourself like the concierge?" he cried, "Sapristi! here I am at home at last! thank God for that!"

He fell into a chair, snatched off his cap, unbuckled his cloak, and shook his feet to rid himself of his top-boots, and as they were far too large, he sent one in the face of the countryman who had been waiting so long for him, and whom, in his hurried home-coming, he had not noticed.

The little thickset man, who was staring at Chamoureau with wide-open eyes, like a fisherman who thinks that he sees something at the end of his line, seemed far from pleased at receiving the Louis XIII boot in his face, and cried out:

"Well, look here, you--Carnival--do you take my face for a boot-jack? What sort of an animal is this, anyway?"

Thereupon the business agent, perceiving that there was a man seated in one corner of the room, made him a low bow.

"I beg pardon, monsieur, a thousand pardons; I didn't see you.--Madame Monin, my slippers, at once. What does monsieur wish?"

"What I wish is to speak to the master of the house, the business man--because I have business--and it ain't a small matter either--to put in his hands."

"I, monsieur, am the master of the house, Chamoureau,--at your service. We will step into my office, when I have my slippers and dressing gown.--Come, Madame Monin."

"I'm looking for 'em, monsieur, but I don't know where you've hid 'em; I can't put my hand on 'em."

"What's that! is that the truth? you're the business agent?" said the countryman, scrutinizing Chamoureau from head to foot.

"To be sure, monsieur, I am the man."

"Are you always dressed like this--with spangles all over you, and such a funny-looking cravat?"

"No, monsieur, this is a disguise which I assumed, contrary to my custom; it must not be regarded as establishing a precedent."

"Ah! so you spent the night at the masquerade, and then you went round drinking at wine-shops--raising the devil, as your servant said just now!"

"You are mistaken, monsieur; a man may go to the ball by chance--there's no law against it--but that is no reason why he should visit wine-shops and raise the devil afterward."

"Well then, as your fandangoes end at daylight, what have you been doing since then that makes you come home so late, if you haven't been the rounds of the wine-shops?"

"It seems to me that these are rather unusual questions, monsieur."

"Damnation! monsieur, let me tell you that what I've seen sets one to thinking. Do you suppose I'm going to put my business in your hands, and give a power of attorney to collect a plump little sum of money to a man what dresses like this and shows himself in the streets in such a dress at this time of day--goes on sprees in short, at an age when he ought to behave himself! _Nenni_, nenni! this sort of thing don't give me confidence in you. I'll go and look for a business agent who ain't up to such tricks!"

And the countryman rose and prepared to leave the room.

Chamoureau, who was very uncomfortable because he had taken off his boots and had not received his slippers, none the less ran after the client who was about to escape him, and seized his arm, saying:

"For heaven's sake, monsieur, don't judge by appearances; I am not a frequenter of balls. Besides, here in Paris a man may amuse himself a little and still attend to his business; indeed, it often happens that you meet at a ball or at the theatre the very persons you want to see.--Madame Monin! sapristi! my slippers!"

"Tell me, then, where you hid them, monsieur."

"Look under my bed.--Entrust your business to me, monsieur, and rest assured that I will look after it with all the zeal that I always display in behalf of my clients, who, I venture to say, have never had occasion thus far to do anything but congratulate themselves on having placed their interests in my hands."

"_Ouiche!_ that's all very fine talk! but I believe what I see.--They told me that Monsieur Chamoureau was a widower, but that he still cried for his wife."

"That's the truth, monsieur, the exact truth.--O Eléonore! why are you not here to defend your husband!"

"They ain't under the bed, I just looked there."

"Look in my somno.--Yes, monsieur, I mourn for my wife! If she were alive, she'd have found my slippers before this!"

"When a man mourns for his dead wife, he don't go masquerading round the streets in broad daylight! No, no! I don't trust you!"

At that moment they heard loud talking on the stairs. The door, which was not locked, was thrown open with violence, and the professor of bookkeeping rushed into the room, shouting at the top of his voice:

"What have I learned? Great God! He has worn a disguise, attended public balls, and carried disregard of propriety so far as to appear in broad daylight and in his own neighborhood, dressed in a costume to which it is impossible to give a name.--Yes! it is not a falsehood, a fable, a false rumor; here he is, still in that absurd costume! and he, a man who keeps a business office, abandons himself to such libertinage--and without his shoes!--What a shocking disguise!"

"Ah! good-morning, Monsieur Beaubichon, I am at your service in one moment.--Come, Madame Monin, will you give me my slippers or not?"

"They ain't in your somno either, monsieur."

"You are at my service, monsieur!" rejoined the professor, puffing like an ox; "but I, monsieur, I am not at your service! I no longer propose that you shall dispose of my destiny and my future.--Upon my word!--I have come to tell you, monsieur, that I withdraw my confidence from you and that you shall find no wife for me--for me, Aimé-Désiré-Jules Beaubichon; the idea of my taking a wife on the guaranty of a pseudo Spaniard! of a man who so far forgets his manhood as to deck himself in tinsel that gives him the aspect of a mountebank!"

"I do the same, monsieur," said the countryman; "I withdraw my confidence from him; to be sure, I hadn't given it to him, but I withdraw it all the same. I was going to give him my power of attorney. But nay, nay, Lisette! he won't have a chance to throw my money away at balls!"

"He was employed to find me a spouse, monsieur; but where would he go to find one? to _Valentino_, or the _Salle-Barthélemy?_ For me, who desire good morals and virginity before all things! He would arrange a marriage for me with one of those little women whom all Paris knows, a _girl of marble_, monsieur; when I say _marble_, I use a theatrical form of expression--do you understand?"

"Faith, no!"

"I am not surprised."

While these two gentlemen indulged in their recriminations and reflections, far from flattering to the business agent, the latter, finding that his slippers did not come, and being averse to standing on the floor in his stockings, decided to get down on his hands so that he might more easily look under the furniture and find that indispensable portion of his costume. His position, as he crawled around his room on all fours, was ill adapted to restore the confidence of the persons whom the sight of his disguise had so exasperated. Monsieur Beaubichon therefore wrathfully jammed his hat over his eyes, crying:

"Observe, monsieur, observe the results of dissipation! A man who should be as serious as the law itself, is obliged to crawl around his room on all fours, in search of objects which should be at his hand!--I go, and never in my life will I set foot inside this office! Keep your marriageable women, monsieur, or marry them to your clients--this professor of bookkeeping will not endorse them. Good-day!"

"I follow your lead, monsieur; I'll keep my power of attorney and try to find a business agent who won't fling yellow boots in my face. Good-day!"

"Go to the devil! and leave me in peace! for I'm sick of you both!" retorted Chamoureau; and, weary of his unsuccessful search, he sat on the floor in the middle of the room. But at that moment the servant returned with a victorious air, holding the slippers in her hand.

"They were in the sideboard, monsieur," she cried; "you must have been very absent-minded to put 'em there."