Chapter II: Part 2

Thus Francois was launched on what he was pleased to call the business of life, and soon became expert in the transfer of property. Strange to say, he had little pleasure in the debauchery of successful crime, and was too good-natured to like violence. When he had enough for his moderate wants he wandered in the country, here and there, in an aimless, drifting way. Simple things gave him pleasure. He could lie in the woods or on the highway half a day, only moving to keep in the sun. He liked to watch any living creature--to see the cows feed, to observe the birds. He had a charm for all animals. When the wagons went by, dogs deserted them, and came to him for a touch and a word. Best of all it was to sit beside some peasant's beehive, finding there no enmity, and smiling at the laborious lives he had no mind to imitate. Sometimes he yearned for the lost poodle, and had a pang of loneliness. That this man should have had gentle tastes, a liking for nature, a regard for some of the decencies of life, will not surprise those who know well the many varieties of the young criminal class; neither will these be amazed to learn that now and then he heard mass, and crossed himself devoutly when there was occasion. Children he fascinated; a glance of his long, odd face would make them leave nurse and toy, and sidle up to him. In the Cite these singularities made him avoided, while his growing strength caused him to be feared. He sought no friends among the thieves. "Very prudent, that," said Mme. Quatre Pattes; "the more friends, the more enemies."

He was quick and active, and a shrewd observer; for the hard life of the streets had sharpened his naturally ready wits, and he looked far older than his years. Of a Sunday in May he was walking down the Rue St. Honore, feeling a bit lonely, as was not often the case, when he saw Toto. He whistled, and the poodle ran to him, and would no more of the shop or fat food he liked.

"Toto! _Mon Dieu_!" he laughed, hugging the dog, his eyes full with the tears of joy. "Hast stolen me again! Wilt never return me? 'T is no honest dog. _Viens donc_. Come, then, old friend." Joyous in the company of his comrade, who was now well grown, he strolled out into the fields, where Toto caught a rabbit--a terrible crime in those days.

During the next two years the pair fairly prospered. Francois, as he used to relate, having risen in his profession, found a certain pleasure in good clothes, and being of a dramatic turn, could put on an air of bourgeois sobriety, or, with a sword at his side and a bit of lace here and there, swagger as a lesser gentleman. If things were very bad, he sold Toto and all his fine tricks for a round sum, and in a day or two was sure to find the dog overjoyed and back again at the garret door. The pair were full of devices. There was Toto, a plated snuff-box in his mouth, capering before some old gentle or some slow-pacing merchant; appears Francois, resistlessly smiling.

"Has monsieur lost a snuff-box? My dog? Yes, monsieur. He is honest, and clever too."

Monsieur, hastily searching, produces his own snuff-box--the indispensable snuff-box of the day.

"No; thanks." And it is noted that the box he shows is of gold, and into what pocket it falls. In the next crowd Toto knows how to make a disturbance with some fat lap-dog, and in the confusion thus created the snuff-box changes owners.

"If the man be sorry, I at least am made happy," says Francois; "and he hath been the better for a lesson in caution. I got what I needed, and he what he required. Things are very even in this world." Francois had learned philosophy among the cures and priests of the choir-house. As he avoided great risks, and, as I have said, was averse to violence, he kept clear of detection, and could deceive the police of the king if by rare chance he were in peril of arrest. When the missing property was some minor article, such as a handkerchief, it was instantly hid in Toto's mouth. The dog skipped away, the outraged master was searched; the bewildered owner apologized, and the officers were shocked at such a needless charge. Francois talked about his offended honor, and as he looked at twenty to be a strong man of full age, the affair was apt to go no further.

Half the cleverness and thought thus devoted to an ignoble pursuit would have given him success in more honest ways. But for a long while no angel chance tempted him, and it must be admitted that he enjoyed the game he pursued, and was easily contented, not eagerly caring to find a less precarious and less risky mode of life.

Temperament is merely a permanent mood. Francois was like the month of June in his dear Paris. There might be storms and changes, but his mental weather had the pleasant insurance of what was in the order of despotic nature. And yet to be owner of the continual sunshine of cheerfulness has its drawbacks. It deprives a man of some of the wholesome lures of life. It dulls the spurs which goad us to resolve. It may make calamity too easy of endurance. To be too consistently cheerful may be in itself a misfortune. It had for this vagrant all its values and some of its defects. His simple, gay existence, and his flow of effervescent merriment, kept him happy and thoughtless. Most persons of this rare type like company; but Francois was an exception. He was better pleased to be alone with his dog, and usually desired no other society. As the poodle could not talk, his master was given to making answer for him, and finding no one to his taste among the Crab's villainous lodgers, kept to himself, and was satisfied. Nor did he ever appear to have imagined what the larger world he knew not held of such human society as would have comforted that sense of void in his heart which he acknowledged at times, but had no way to fill. When fortune played him some sorry trick, he laughed, and unconsciously quoted La Rochefoucauld. "Toto, ah, my Toto, one can never be as cunning as everybody." This was apropos of an incident which greatly amused him.

He was in his favorite resort, the Palais Royal, one June morning, and was at this time somewhat short of cash. The Crab had preached him a sharp sermon on his lack of industry, and he had liked neither the sermon nor the preacher. At this moment a young fellow in fine clothes came by. Francois, producing, as usual, a gaudy snuff-box worth some ten francs, politely asked of monsieur had he lost this box. Monsieur took it in his hand. Yes, yes; he had just missed it, the gift of his god-father, and was much obliged. He let it fall into his pocket, and walked away. Francois looked after him. "Toto, _nous sommes voles_--we are sold!" Then the fun of it, as usual, overcame him, and he wandered away to the garden of the Luxembourg, and at last threw himself on a bench, and laughed as a child laughs, being for moments quiet, and then given over to uncontrolled mirth. Having feasted with honest comfort on all the humorous aspects of the situation, his hand chanced to fall on a little book left by some one on the seat. He had long ceased to read, for no books fell in his way, nor could he often have afforded to buy them even had he had a keen appetite for their contents.

The little vellum-bound volume opened to his touch, as if used to be generous of what it held. It was Latin, and verse. He knew, or had known, more than most choir-boys needed of this tongue, and the talk of the choir-house was, by stringent rule, in Latin. But this book was not of a religious kind; it half puzzled his mind as he read. Unaccustomed to profane Latin verse, and yet wholly pleased, he began to murmur aloud the rhythmic measures:

"Poseimus, si quid vacui sub umbra
Lusimus tecum, quod et hunc in annum
Vivat, et plures: age, dic Latinum,
Barbite, carmen.

"It hath a fine sound, _mon ami_; and who was this Quintus?" He went on reading aloud the delicious rhythms for the joy of hearing their billowy flow. Now and then he smiled as he caught the full meaning of a line.

The keen-faced poodle sat on the bench beside him, with a caressing head laid against his shoulder; the sun was sweet and warm, the roses were many. The time suited the book, and the book the man. He read on, page after page of the beautiful Aldine type, now and then pausing, vexed to be so puzzled by these half-guessed beautiful riddles.

"Toto, my dog, I would thou didst know Latin. This man he loved the country, and good wine, and girls; and he had friends--friends, which you and I have not."

Then he was lost for an hour. At last he ceased to read, and sat with a finger in the book, idly drifting on the immortal stream of golden song.

"That must have been a merry companion, Toto. I did hear of him once in the choir-house. He must be dead a mighty while ago. If a man is as gay as that, it must be horrid to die."

My poor thief was one of the myriad who through the long centuries had come into kindly touch of the friend of Maecenas. For the first time in his uncertain life he felt the charm of genius.

Indulgent opportunity was for Francois always near to some fatal enmity of chance. So does fate deal with the unlucky. He saw coming swiftly toward him a tall, strongly built man of middle age. He was richly dressed, and as he drew near he smiled.

"Ah, monsieur," he said; "I came back in haste to reclaim my little Horace. I missed it only when I got home. I am most fortunate."

Francois rose. He returned the small volume, but did not speak.

"Monsieur of course knows Horace," said the gentleman, looking him over, a little curious and more than a little interested. Too sure of his own position to shun any intercourse which promised amusement, he went on: "No; not know Horace? Let us sit awhile. The sun is pleasant."

Francois, rather shy, and suspicious of a manner of man he had never before encountered, sat down, saying, "I was a choir-boy once. I know some Latin, not much; but this sounded pleasant to the ear."

"Yes; it is immortal music. A choir-boy, you said; and pardon me, but, _mon Dieu_, I heard you laugh as I was searching for my book. You have a fine gift that way, and there is little to laugh at nowadays in France."

"Monsieur will excuse me; I am so made that I laugh at everything and at nothing. I believe I do laugh in my sleep. And just now I laughed because--because--"

"Well, why did you laugh?"

Francois glanced at the questioner. Something authoritative in his ways made it seem needful to answer, and what this or any man thought of him he cared little--perhaps because in his world opinions went for nothing. And still he hesitated a moment.

"Well?" There was a note of strong surprise in the voice, as if the owner felt it to be unusual that a query he put should not evoke instant reply.

"I laughed because I was cheated."

"Charming, that! May I ask how? But perhaps--"

"No," said Francois; "if it amuse monsieur, why should I care?" He calmly related his adventure.

The gentleman threw himself back on the seat in an ecstasy of amusement. He was out of humor with the time and with his own world, and bored by the incessant politics of the day; here was a pleasant diversion.

"By St. Denis! my friend, you are like the great Chicot that was fool to King Henry of merry memory."

"And how, monsieur?"

"How? He had a long face that laughed ever, long legs, and a shrewd way of seeming more simple than he was."

"Monsieur flatters me."

"Ah, and a smart rogue, too. I may conclude your profession to be that of relieving the rich of their too excessive luxuries."

Francois was enchanted with this ingenious and unprejudiced companion, who had, like himself, a sense of the laughable aspects of life.

"Monsieur has hit it," he said gaily; "I am a thief."

No one had taught him to be ashamed of anything but failure in his illegal enterprises.

"_Tiens_! That is droll;--not that you are a thief: I have known many in my own world. They steal a variety of things, each after his taste in theft--the money of the poor, the character of a man, a woman's honor."

"I scarcely comprehend," said Francois, who was puzzled.

"They lack your honesty of confession. Could you be altogether honest if a man trusted you?"

"I do not know. No man ever trusted me, and one must live, monsieur."

The gentleman hesitated, and relapsed into the indifference of a too easy life. He had been on the point of offering this outcast a chance.

"_Enfin_, no doubt you are right. I wish you every success. The deuce! Have you my snuff-box and my handkerchief?"

"Both," said Francois.

"Then don't run away. I could never catch you. Long legs must be of use in your profession. The snuff-box I will ransom. Let us say fifty francs. It is worth more, but it bears my name, and there are risks."

"Certainly," said Francois. "And the handkerchief. Monsieur is _enrhume_--has a cold; I could not deprive monsieur."

The gentleman thanked him, paid over the money for the box, and, greatly pleased, rose, saying: "You are a dangerous acquaintance; but I trust we may meet again. _Au revoir!_"

Francois remained on the bench, Toto at his feet in the sun. This meeting affected him strangely. It had been the first touch of a world remote from his own. He did not recognize the fact that he had gifts which enable men to rise in life. At times he had had vague ambitions, but he was at the foot of a ladder, and the rungs above were broken or not to be seen. These moods were brief, and as to their cause not always clear to him. He was by nature social, and able to like or to love; but the people of the Cite were dreadful, and if now and then some broken refugee from a higher class delighted him for a time, the eventful hand of justice or what not was apt to separate them.

As he looked after the gentleman he felt his charm and the courtesy of his ways as something to be desired. His own form of attractiveness, the influence of joyous laughter and frank approach, he had often and usefully tested; and perhaps this sense of his own power to please made him intelligently apprehensive of what he had just experienced. Had he seized eagerly the half-offered help the gentleman suggested rather than offered, he had been wiser; but it was literally true that, being when possible honest as to speech, he had obeyed the moment's impulse. A better man than the gentleman would have gone further. He had lazily reflected, and concluded that to help this poor devil might be troublesome, and thus the jewel opportunity lay lost at their feet. They were to meet again, and then it was to be the thief's turn.

Now he sat in thought, kicking the ground with his boot. Out of the past came remembrances of the asylum, and how he had been told to be good, and not to kill or to steal, or to do certain other naughty things less clear to him then than now. But this was a far-away time. At the choir-house were the same moral lessons, but they who taught were they who sinned. Since then no one had said a word of reproach to the waif; nor had this great gentleman, and yet he had left him in the rare mood of thought-filled depression.

"Wake up, Toto," he cried; "thou art become too fat. _En avant aux champs!_" And, followed by the poodle, he went away up the Seine, and was gone so long that Quatre Pattes began to think he had taken to honest courses and would return no more.

He came back in a fortnight, the better for certain prosperous ventures. And thus the days ran on. If fortune were against him, and even diet hard to get, Toto went with the Crab to some distant market after dusk, and, while she bargained, knew to steal a cutlet, and to run away with his prize, and make for home or the next dark lane. But these devices failed at times, and thus Francois's life consisted of a series of ups and downs. When lucky he bought good clothes, for which he had a liking; when unlucky he pawned them, and went back to garments no one would take in pledge.

It was in the year 1788 that this adventure occurred. He was, as far as was to be guessed, fully twenty-one years of age. His life of adventure, of occasional hardships, and of incessant watchfulness had already given him the appearance of being a far older person.

Always an odd-looking lad, as he grew to maturity his great length of limb, his long face, and ears of unnatural bigness, gave him such singularity of aspect as made disguises impossible.

The poodle was an added danger, and for this reason, when in pursuit of prey, Francois was forced to leave the dog with Mother Crab. Thus time ran on with such perils as attend the life he led, but with better fortune than could have been expected. As to these later years up to 1790, Francois, in his memoirs, says little. Once--indeed, twice--he left the Crab's house, only to be driven back by stress of circumstance. After 1790 his account is more complete, and here it is that we take up again the fuller story of his life.

The turmoil of vast governmental and social changes was disturbing all ranks of life. If the Revolution was nursed in the salons, as some say, it was born in the furrows of the tax-tormented peasant, and in the seething caldron of the Cite and the quarters of the starving poor.

Francois, who cared little what ruler was on top, or who paid taxes, was aware of the uneasy stir in his own neighborhood. Men were more savage. Murder and all violent crimes were more common. That hungry beast, the mob, began to show its fangs, soon to be red with blood. The clubs of all opinions were busy. The church was toppling to ruin, its centuries of greedy gain at an end. Political lines were sharply drawn. The white cockade and the tricolor were the badges of hostile ranks, still more distinctly marked by costume. The cafes were divided: some were Royalist, some Jacobin or neutral. Too many who were of the noble class were flying, or, if more courageous or less forethoughtful, were gathering into bitterly opponent camps. So much of that lower Paris as felt, yearned, hated, and was hungry, glad of any change, was pleased amid tumult to find its chance to plunder and to kill.

The fall of the Bastille in the preceding year had not seemed important to Francois. He had interested himself in the purses of the vast crowd which looked on and was too much taken up with the event to guard the contents of its pockets. The violence which came after was not to Francois's taste; but these street crowds were admirable for business until money became scarce, and the snuff-box and the lace handkerchief disappeared with armorial bearings, and with the decree of the people that great dames must no more go in fine carriages.

*VII*

_Wherein is told how Francois saved a man's neck and learned to juggle._

In the early spring of this year Francois found himself, one day, in a crowd near to the Porte St. Denis. He stood high on his long legs, looking on, while men on ladders broke up the royal escutcheon on the stone archway. It amused him a little to see how furious they were, and how crazy were the foolish _poissardes_: these fishwomen, who had so many privileges under the monarchy, at every blow of the hammer yelled with delight; and behold, here was the Crab, Quatre Pattes, far away from her quarter, hoarse with screaming, a horrible edition of woman as she stood under the arch, careless of the falling fragments. On the edge of the more prudent crowd, an old man was guilty of some rash protest in the way of speech. Francois heard the cry, "_A bas l'aristocrate! a la lanterne!_" and saw the Crab leap on the man like some fierce insect, horribly agile, a thin gray tress down her back. Swift and terrible it was. In a moment he swung writhing from the chain of the street-lantern, fighting with vain hands to loosen the rope. A red-haired woman leaped up and caught his leg. There was laughter. The man above her hung limp. Francois did not laugh. He tried to get out of the crowd, away from this quivering horror. To do so was not easy. The crowd was noisy and turbulent, swaying to and fro, intent on mischief. As he moved he saw a small, stout man take, with some lack of skill, a purse from the side-pouch of a huge fishwoman. Francois, being close to the thief, saw him seized by the woman he had robbed. In the press, which was great, Francois slipped a hand into the thief's pocket, and took out the purse. Meanwhile there were again wild cries of "To the lantern!" "Up with him!" the woman lamenting her loss, and denouncing the man who had stolen. His life was like to be brief. Surrounded by these she-devils, he stood, white, shaking, and swearing he was innocent. The man's anguish of fear moved Francois. "_Dame!_" he cried, "search the man before you hang him! I say, search him!" While one of them began to act on his hint, Francois let the purse fall into the pocket of the original owner--an easy feat for a practised hand. "The man has it not. Look again in thy pouch, maman," he cried. "The man has it not; that is plain." When the dame of the market found her purse, she turned on Francois, amid the laughter of her friends. "Thou art a confederate. Thou didst put it back thyself." Indeed, things were like to go ill. The crowd was of a mind to hang some one. A dozen hands fell on him, while the man he had aided slipped away quietly. Francois shook off the women, and with foot and fist cleared a space, for he was of great strength of body. He would have earned but a short reprieve had he not seen the Crab. He called to her: "_A moi_! Quatre Pattes!" The ring of red-faced furies fell back for a moment before the rage and power of a man defending his life. Half dismayed, but furious, they shouted: "Hang him! rail him!" and called to the men to help them. Again Francois was hustled and struck as the crowd closed in on him. He struggled, and called to Toto, whom nothing so disturbed as to see a rude touch laid on his master. In an instant the dog was busy with the stout calves about him, biting, letting go, and biting again. The diversion was valuable, but brief; and soon Toto, who was not over-valiant, fled to his master, the crowd yelling: "Kill him! Hang him and the beast!" Once more Francois exerted his exceptional strength, crying, "Not while I live!" and catching up the dog under his arm. Then he heard the shrill voice of the Crab. "_A moi!_" he shouted, and struck right and left as Quatre Pattes, with her sticks, squirmed in under the great arms of the fishwomen.

"_A moi!_" she cried, "Francois!" With her sticks, and tongue of the vilest, she cleared a space as the venomous creatures fell back from one more hideous than themselves.

Meanwhile the accusing dame shook her purse at the Crab, crying, "He put it back; I felt him do it." But the rest laughed, and the Crab faced her with so fierce a look that she shrank away.

"Off with thee!" said the Crab to Francois; "thou wert near to the lantern."

"'T is a Jacobin of the best," she cried to the mob; "a friend of mine. You will get into trouble--you cursed fools!"

The crowd cheered her, and Francois, seizing the chance, cried, laughing, "Adieu, mesdames," and in a moment was out of the crowd and away. He turned as many corners as possible, and soon, feeling it safe to move more slowly, set down the dog and readjusted his dress.

A minute later he saw beside him the man he had saved. "Do not speak to me here," he said; "follow me at a distance." The man, still white and shaking, obeyed him. At the next turn, as Francois paused in doubt which way to go, he met Quatre Pattes.

"The devil nearly got thee, my little boy," she said; "but a smart thief is worth some trouble to save. Pay me for thy long neck, and quick, too." She was full _eau-de-vie_, and, as usual then, savage and reckless.

"More!" she cried--"more!" as he gave her a franc. "More, more! Ungrateful beast, thou art good to feed me, and for little else. More, more! I say, or I will call them after thee, and this time I shall have a good pull at the rope. More, more!" and she struck him with her stick. "_Sacre_, waif of hell! More! more!" she screamed. "And that fellow who helped thee! I have seen him; I know him."

Francois turned without a word, and ran as fast as his long legs would carry him. Two blocks away he was overtaken by the other thief. They pushed on in silence.

At last Francois, getting back his somewhat scattered wits, said: "We can talk now."

"Ah, I understand," said the other; "thou didst steal her purse from me, and put it back in her pouch."

"Yes; I took it just as they caught thee; then I let it fall into her pouch."

"I thank thee, monsieur. _Dieu_! I am all in a sweat. We are of a trade, I perceive. Why didst thou help me?"

"To keep it was a risk. My turn might have come next. I pitied thee, too."

"I shall never forget it--never."

Francois laughed. The fat man looked up at him. "_Dame!_ but thou hast a queer face, and ears like wings. 'T is a fortune. Let us have a little wine and talk. I have a good idea."

"Presently," said Francois; "I like not the neighborhood."

Soon they found a _guinguette_, or low liquor-shop, in the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, and, feeling at last secure, had a long talk over a bottle of wine.

Francois learned that his new acquaintance was named Pierre Despard, and that he had, for the most part of his means of living, given up the business of relieving the rich of their purses. He explained that he did well as a conjurer, and had a booth near the Pont Neuf. He made clear to Francois that with his quick fingers, and a face which none could see and not laugh, he would be a desirable partner.

"Thou must learn to move those huge ears." Would he be his assistant? When times were bad they might profit by tempting chances in their old line of life.

Francois was just now as near to penitence as his nature permitted him to be, and his recent peril disposed him to listen. The more he reflected as Despard talked, the more he liked it. He ended by saying, "Yes"; and before the Crab had reached home he had taken away his slender store of garments, and, with Toto at his heels, found his way to the room of his new friend, in a little street which ran into the Rue Basse du Rempart, not far from the Madeleine. Thus began a mode of life which he found fresh and full of satisfaction.

The pair so strangely brought together took a room in the fifth story, and, with Toto, set up domestic life on a modest scale. It was much to Francois's contentment. He had what I may call a side taste for the respectable, and this new business seemed to him a decided rise in life. It was varied enough to amuse him; nor was it so conventionally commercial as to lack such adventure and incident as this wild young reprobate of the Cite had learned to like. The new business soon gave the partners more than enough to live upon. After their lodging and diet were provided for, Pierre Despard took two thirds of what was left, and put it away in a stocking, at first with some doubt as to his comrade, but soon with the trust which Francois was apt to inspire. From early morn until noon, Pierre taught Francois to do tricks with cards, to juggle with balls, and to tell fortunes by the lines of the hand. Toto was educated to carry a basket and collect sous, to stand on his head with a pipe in his mouth, and to pick out a card at a signal. The rest of the day was spent in the booth, where they rarely failed to be well paid. At evening there was a quiet cafe and dominoes, and a modest _petit verre_ of brandy. Meanwhile the peasants burned chateaux, and Protestant and Catholic hanged one another in the pleasant South.

Now and then the Paris mob enjoyed a like luxury, and amid unceasing disorder the past was swept on to the dust-heaps of history.

The little audience of children and nurses in front of the booth was as yet nowise concerned as to these vast changes; nor was Toto disturbed when it was thought prudent to robe him with a three-colored ribbon. The politics of the masters of the show varied as their audiences changed from the children of the rich at noon to the Jacobin workmen at the coming of dusk. Francois personally preferred splendor and the finery of the great. He was by nature a Royalist. Pierre was silent or depressed, and said little as to his opinions. But both had the prudence of men always too near to poverty to take risks of loss for the sake of political sentiments in which they had no immediate interest.

Despard was a somber little man, and nimble, as some fat men are. He was as red-cheeked as a Norman apple, and, at this time, of unchanging gravity of face and conduct. Not even Francois's gaiety could tempt him to relate his history; and although at times a great talker, he became so terrified when frankly questioned as to his past, that Francois ceased to urge him. That any one should desire to conceal anything was to Francois amazing. He was himself a valuable possession to his morose partner.

"I do not laugh," said Pierre; "nay, not even as a matter of business. Thou shalt laugh for two. Some day we will go to see the little girl who is at Sevres, in a school of nuns. 'T is there the money goes."

This was a sudden revelation to Francois. Here was a human being, like himself a thief, who was sacrificing something for another. The isolation of his own life came before him with a sense of shock. He said he should be glad to see the child, and when should they go?

*VIII*

_In which Francois discovers the mercantile value of laughter, and the Crab takes toll of the jugglers--with the sad history of Despard, the partner._

Late in the evenings, in the room they shared, the practice of the early morning was resumed, and, above all, Pierre was overjoyed to see what tricks of feature were within Francois's control. He had, in fact, some of the art of the actor, and was the master of such surprises of expression as were irresistibly comic. By and by the fame of his wonderful visage spread, and very often the young nobles, with their white cockades, came to see, or great ladies would pause to have their palms read. When palmistry was to be used, the booth was closed with black curtains, between which was seen only this long face, with the flaring ears and laughing eyes. Presently a huge hand came out below, the rest of the figure remaining unseen. Then, in the quaintest language, Francois related wonderful things yet to be, his large mouth opening so as to divide the merry face as with a gulf.

It was a time eager for the new, and this astonishing mask had a huge success. The booth grew rich, and raised its prices, so that soon these two pirates of the Cite sat in wonder over their gains, and Pierre began to store up a few louis for a bad day, and for the future of the little maid at Sevres, where two or three of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart had found a new home, and taken again the charge of some of their scattered flock.

Francois was fast learning the art of the conjurer; but at times, sad to say, he yearned for a chance to apply his newly acquired dexterity in ways which were more perilous. He liked change, and had the pleasure in risk which is common to daring men. Indeed, he was at times so restless as to require the urgent counsels of Pierre to keep him tranquil. Once or twice he must needs insist on a holiday, and went away with Toto for two days. They came back dirty and happy, but to Pierre's relief. This uneasy partner was now essential, and more and more Jacobin and Royalist crowded about the booth to get a laugh out of the sight of the face which, appearing through the curtain with hair brushed up and long brown beard combed down, suddenly grew as broad as it had been long. The laugh into which it broke was so cheery, so catching, so causeless, that all who saw fell into fits of merriment such as were not common in those days of danger and anxiety.

Then the partner appeared in front of the booth. So many wished the man who laughed to read their palms that Pierre declared it must be for the highest bidder. A gay auction took place; and the winner heard his fate slyly whispered by the voice of many tones, or it might be that it was loudly read for the benefit of the crowd, and, amid cries and jeers, the victim retired with promise of a wife with a negative dowry in some unexistent section of Paris. Or, again, it was an elderly dame who consulted the voice of fate. She was to have three husbands, and die young. Then another broad hand came forth, and on it the black poodle upright, with a handkerchief to his eyes, and his tail adorned with crape. It was witty, innocent, and amusing, and delighted this Paris, which was becoming suspicious, cruel, and grimly devilish.

Very soon the business in which laughter was sold for what it would bring in laughter, and for what men were willing to pay for an honest grin, began to have incidents which more than satisfied Francois's taste for adventure and greatly troubled Pierre. The little room of the two conjurers had flowers in the window, and a caged bird. These were Francois's luxuries. Pierre did not care for them. He had begun to read books about the rights of man, and bits of "The Friend of the People," by Marat. When Francois first knew him he liked to gossip gravely of what went on, as to the changing fashions, or as to the new "baptism" of the streets, but of the serious aspect of the tumbling monarchy was not inclined to speak. At times, too, he let it be seen that he was well educated; but beyond this, Francois still learned nothing of his past. One evening Francois, gaily whistling, and with Toto after him, turned the knob of their chamber door. There was some resistance. He called, "Pierre!" and the door yielded. He went in. Two candles were burning on their little dining-table. Facing him, in a chair, sat the Crab, Quatre Pattes, the spine bent forward, the head tilted up to get sight of Pierre, who was leaning against the wall back of the door. Her eyes, a dusky red, were wide open to enlarge the view which the bend of her back limited. The beak between them was purple. Her mouth, grim and lipless, was set in deep, radiating wrinkles, and the toothless gums were moving as if she were chewing. Her two wrists rested on the curved handles of her short canes, and her outstretched hands, lean, eager, and deformed, were moving like the claws of some ravenous creature of the jungle.

Francois looked from her to his partner, Despard. He was standing as if flattened, his eyes upon the woman, his palms, outspread, set hard on the wall behind him, a pitiful image of alarm and hatred.

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Francois, "what is all this? What does this she-devil want?"

"Want! I want money, vagabond thief! I saw thee in the booth yesterday. We are honest, are we? And I know him, too. Him!" and she pointed at Pierre, who murmured:

"Kill her! Take her away!"

Francois laughed. "Out of this, hag!" and he laughed again.

"I know that man," she cried. "_Sacre_, but he is scared, the coward! I remind him of old times. He must pay--pay, or I will fetch the police. He knows me. Out with the money! Empty your pockets!"

Francois shouted: "What, Mother Puzzlebones, dost thou think to scare an old dog of the Cite? Art fit to be mother-in-law of Satan. Out with thee! Out of this, I say! Here is to buy flesh to cover thy rattlebone carcass." He threw two francs before her.

The Crab stood up, and beat with her sticks on the table. "No francs! It is gold I will have--red louis, or I will set the police on thee, and on the fat fool yonder. I will find that girl of his. She must be fit to sell by this time. A beauty was her mother."

"Kill her! Kill her!" said Pierre, wrath in his words, fear in their tremor. Of a sudden he seized a stool, and, mad with some memory of wrong, leaped forward. The Crab faced him with courage, as Francois tore away the stool, and pushed him back. "No murder here. Keep quiet, idiot! And as to thee, thou gutter Crab, out of this!"

Upon this, Toto set up a dismal howl, and made at the old woman. A rousing whack from her stick sent him howling under the bed, where he sat pensive. Then she turned on Francois.

"Look here," she said; "thou hast some sense. That ass has none. Let us talk. Thou canst give me money or let it alone. You both know me. A word to the police, and up goes the little show."

"Very likely."

"Then make a bargain. Pay me, and I hold my tongue. No use to call me names."

"Well, let us have peace, and talk," said Francois. This threat of the Crab as to the officers of the law might not be vain; she was quite too well informed; and there was Pierre, white and furious. Francois foresaw tragedy; comedy was more to his taste.

"What wilt thou have, Quatre Pattes? We are poor. Why threaten thy old lodger?" He was eager to get her away, in order to understand matters. Too much was dark. Pierre said no more, but stood staring, angry and yet afraid.

"A louis a week," cried the Crab.

"Nonsense! These good geese would soon die of starvation, and then no more golden eggs. Here are ten francs. Each week thou shalt have five."

"_Nom de Dieu!_" groaned Pierre; "and to kill her were so easy!"

"Not for thee, coward!" shouted the Crab, knocking her sticks together for emphasis.

"Kill her!" said Pierre, faintly.

"Nonsense!" said Francois. "Come to the booth for it, Crab; not here, mind you, not here--not a sou here."

"Adieu, my jolly bankers," cried the hag. "For the day this will do; then we shall see." With this, the sticks rattled on the tiled floor, and she pattered out of the door, which Francois shut after her.

"Behold us, netted like larks!" he said, and broke into a laugh.

"It is not a thing to laugh at," said Pierre, the sweat rolling down his face.

"No; perhaps not. Let us take counsel. But what troubled thee? Shall a crippled old woman ruin two strong men?"

Pierre groaned, and let his face fall on his palms, making no reply.

"What is it, my friend?"

"I cannot tell thee now. It were useless; it would not help. God has made the little one safe--safe. One of these days I may have the courage to tell thee."

His natural reticence and some too dreadful past combined to keep him silent. Francois was puzzled. He knew the man to be a coward; but his timidity, followed by this sudden outbreak of murderous fury, was inexplicable; nor did he comprehend it fully until later events revealed to him, as he looked back at this scene, the nature of the morbid changes which his partner's character had already begun to feel. "What does it all mean?" he demanded.

"Ask me no more," said Despard. "Not now--not now. She cannot hurt me or mine. It is hate, not fear, I have. But thou? Why didst thou pay?"

"For good enough reasons," said Francois; "but I can take care of myself." He was by no means sure of this. Nevertheless, he laughed as usual, and said: "Let us have supper; I cannot think when I am empty."

No more was said. They ate in silence, and then Pierre turned to his "L'Ami du Peuple," and Francois to a pipe and to his thoughts. Must he give up the booth, and wander? He knew the Crab well enough to fear her. The price of her silence would rise, and to deny her would bring about disaster. He began to wish he had been honest. It was too late now; but France was large, and, after all, he could laugh at his own embarrassment. There was time to think; he had bought that.

They spoke no further of the Crab; but from this time Pierre became depressed and suspicious at every knock on the door. Quatre Pattes came to the booth with her usual eagerness, and if she chanced to be full of bad brandy, and too noisy and unappeasable, Francois paid her something out of his own share of their growing profits. Had he been alone, he might have done otherwise; but Pierre was timid, watchful, and talked sadly of the little one at Sevres. How should he manage if the show came to an end? It had not been worth much until Francois joined him. Before that he had been starving himself to keep the child in careful hands. He became increasingly melancholy, and this especially in the early mornings. He was apt to say at night, "A day is gone, and nothing has happened."

Francois was courageous, and mocked a little at the jade Fortune. "What could happen?" And yet this shrinking little man, fat, doleful, and full of fears, sat heavily upon him; and there, too, was this child whom he had never seen. _Peste_! The children he had known at the asylum were senseless, greedy little cattle, all of one make. Perhaps this girl at Sevres was no better.

*IX*

_In which Francois tells the fortune of the Marquis de Ste. Luce and of Robespierre, and has his own fortune told, and of how Despard saw a man of whom he was afraid._

Francois was soon to be further amazed by Pierre Despard. To the last of his life, Francois remembered that day. A cool October had stripped the king's chestnut-trees of their glory as clean as the king himself was soon to be shorn. The leaves were rustling at evening across the Place Louis XV, and covering the water of the canals. Here, of late, the tent-booth had been set up for the benefit of the better society, which still wore the white cockade of the Bourbons. A merry group of the actors of the Comedie was waiting to see Francois, the maker of faces. There were Chenard of the Opera Comique; Fleury and Saint-Prix, whose gaiety no prison in after days could lessen, and no fear of death abate. "Behold, there is the great Talma," said Pierre, peeping out; "and the aristos are many to-day. Art ready, Francois?"

Francois was delighted. The great Talma here, and actually to see him--Francois! He had of late been acquiring stage ambitions, and taking great pains to improve the natural advantages of a face quite matchless in Paris.

Despard peeped in again. "Yes, Francois; they talk of thee, and there are many in the crowd. They gather to see Talma. There are Jacobins, and thy friends the aristocrats. Make thou haste. Art ready?"

"Yes, yes," said Francois. He felt it to be a great, an unusual occasion. He had a bright idea. He struck with a stick three times on the floor of the booth, the traditional signal at the Theatre Francais for the curtain to rise. A roar of applause outside rewarded his shrewd sense of what was due to this audience.

"_Tiens_! That is good," said La Rive.

The slit in the curtain opened, and, framed in the black drapery, appeared a face which seemed to have come out of the canvas of Holbein. It was solemn, and yet grotesque, strong of feature, the face, beard, and hair white with powder; the eyes were shut.

"_Mon Dieu_," said Talma, "what a mask! 'T is stern as fate." The crowd stayed motionless and silent.

"Look! look!" said Fleury. "'T is a study. To smile with closed eyes! Didst thou ever see a man smile in sleep, Talma?"

It was pretty and odd. Little curves of mirthful change crawled downward from the eyes over the large, grave features; the ears moved; the eyes opened; and a storm of liberal laughter broke up the quiet lines of cheek and mouth.

"Bravo! bravo!" cried Talma and the other actors, while the crowd burst into a roar of applause and responsive mirth.

"Angels of fun!" cried Saint-Prix, "what a face! 'T is a gargoyle come down from the roof of St. Jacques de la Boucherie. Does it go back of nights? I wonder what next will he do?"

"_Tiens_! Wait," said La Rive.

The white face seen above in the slit of the black curtain became suddenly serious, with moveless eyes looking past the audience as if into futurity. Below appeared two large hands, scrupulously clean, while the man's figure remained hidden. There was something impressive in this artful pose.

"Fortunes, fortunes, _messieurs et dames_!" cried Pierre. "Who will have his hand read? _Avancez_--come!"

A shrill voice on the outskirts of the crowd cried, "Read Louis Capet's!" The white cockades turned to look. "It were easy to read," said a tall Jacobin. A gentleman in the black garments of the unprogressive noblesse turned: "Your card, citizen, or monsieur, as you like." The crowd was scarcely stirred by this politely managed difference. It was the year of duels.

Two lads pushed forward their tutor, an abbe, as was plain to see, although few clerics still ventured to wear their old costume. He laughed awkwardly, and timidly laid a fat, well-fed hand on that of Francois's. The grave face of the reader of palms fell forward to see the fateful lines. For a moment Francois was silent; then the voice which came from his stolid visage was monotonously solemn, and the words dropped from it one by one, as if they were the mechanical product of some machine without interest in the results of its own action. One long, lean forefinger traversed the abbe's palm, and paused. "An easy life thou hast had. A woman has troubled it." The two pupils were delighted; the crowd laughed. "The line of life is broken--broken"--Francois's hands went through the pantomime of the snapping of a thread--"like that." The abbe drew back, and could not be persuaded to hear further. Again there was a pause. A grisette advanced smiling, and was sent away charmed with the gifts a pleasant future held in store. Pierre exhorted for a time in vain. Presently the crowd made way. A slight man in breeches and silk stockings came forward; he was otherwise dressed in the extreme of the fashion still favored by the court party, but wore no cockade, and carried two watches, the heavy seals of which Francois greatly desired to appropriate. His uneasy eyes were covered with spectacles, and around them his sallow complexion deepened to a dusky, dull green. Altogether this was a singular and not a pleasant face, or so, at least, thought the palm-reader, a part of whose cunning was to study the expressions of those who asked his skill. The man who laid his hand on Francois's looked up at the motionless visage of the ex-thief. Francois said: "Is it for the citizen alone to hear, or for all?"

"For me--for me."

Francois's voice fell to a low whisper.

"Let the past go," said the listener; "what of the future?"

"It is dark. The lines are many. They are--citizen, thou wilt be a ruler, powerful, dreaded. Thou wilt have admiration, fame, and at last the hatred of man."

"I--I--what nonsense! Then?"--and he waited,--"then? What then? What comes after!"'

"I will tell thee"; and Francois whispered.

"No more--no more; enough of such foolishness!" He was clearly enough disturbed by what he had heard. "Thou must think men fools."

"Fate is always a fool, citizen; but the fools all win, soon or late."

"That, at least, is true, Master Palmister." Then a pair of sinister eyes, set deep behind spectacles, sought those of Francois. "Thou hast a strange face, Master Palm-reader. Dost thou believe what thou dost make believe to read on men's palms?"

"Sometimes."

"Now--now?--this time?"

"Yes; I believe."

"I shall not forget thee."

Francois felt something like a chill between his shoulders. The Jacobin stepped aside after depositing an ample fee in the basket which Toto presented.

There was a murmur in the crowd. Several persons looked with curious eyes after the retreating man, and the conjurer heard some one say: "_Tiens! C'est drole_. It is Robespierre." His was at this time not more than a well-known name. For a minute no one else came forward. Francois saw Pierre slip hastily into the tent; he knew not why. A gentleman came up gaily. He was dressed splendidly, with no regard for the leveling tastes of the day.

"The deuce!" he said quickly; "you are my thief!"

"_De grace_, monsieur!" exclaimed Francois; "you will get me into trouble."

"Not I. Happy to meet you. I am myself fond of palmistry. Come, read me my hand."

Francois bent over the palm. He began aloud: "Ah, here have been many loves." Then his voice fell. "Monsieur is a good swordsman."

"So-so," said the gentleman.

"Monsieur has been unfortunate in his duels."

"_Mon Dieu_! Yes; I always kill people."

"Monsieur has one remorse."

"_Sapristi_! Thou art clever, and I lucky to have but one. Go on; 't is vastly amusing. Shall I live to be old? My people do."

"Monsieur will have troubles, but he will live to be old--very old."

"Will he, indeed? I hardly like that. If I were you, I would tell more agreeable fortunes. To outlive the joys of life, to be left a stranded wreck, while the world goes by gay and busy--pshaw! I like not that. You do it well. Let me read your own palm. I have a taste for this art."

Francois was at once interested. The gentleman's strong left hand took that of the thief, and with a wandering forefinger he ran over the lines of the palm. He let it fall, and looked downward at his own hand. "It is strange that we shall meet again, and in an hour of danger. You will be fortunate, and I shall not. You will have--"

"_Tenez_, monsieur--stop!" cried Francois; "I will hear no more"; and he drew his hands within the tent-folds.