Chapter VII: Part 7

Monsieur Pantan had applauded this sentiment heartily. He, too, was a bachelor. He combined, lucratively, the offices of town veterinarian and apothecary, and had written an authoritative book, "The Science of Truffle Hunting." To him it was a science, the first of sciences. He was a fierce-looking little man, with bellicose eyes and bristling moustachio, and quick, nervous hands that always seemed to be rolling endless thousands of pills. He was given to fits of temper, but that is rather expected of a man in the south of France. His devotion to his pig, Clotilde, atoned, in the eyes of Montpont, for a slightly irascible nature.

The party, by now, had reached the hunting preserve, and with eager, serious faces, they lengthened the leashes on their pigs, and urged them to their task. By the laws of the chase, the choicest area had been left for Monsieur Bonticu and Monsieur Pantan, and excited galleries followed each of the two leading contestants. Bets were freely made.

* * * * *

In a scant nine minutes by the watch, Anastasie was seen to freeze and point. Monsieur Bonticu plunged to his plump knees, whipped out his trowel, dug like a badger, and in another minute brought to light a handsome truffle, the size of a small potato, blackish-gray as the best truffles are, and studded with warts. With a gesture of triumph, he exhibited it to the umpire, and popped it into his bag. He rewarded Anastasie with a bit of cheese, and urged her to new conquests. But a few seconds later, Monsieur Pantan gave a short hop, skip and jump, and all eyes were fastened on Clotilde, who had grown motionless, save for the tip of her snout which quivered gently. Monsieur Pantan dug feverishly and soon brandished aloft a well-developed truffle. So the battle waged.

At one time, by a series of successes, Monsieur Bonticu was three up on his rival, but Clotilde, by a bit of brilliant work beneath a chestnut tree, brought to light a nest of four truffles and sent the Pantan colors to the van.

The sun was setting; time was nearly up. The other hunters had long since stopped and were clustered about the two chief contestants, who, pale but collected, bent all their skill to the hunt. Practically every square inch of ground had been covered. But one propitious spot remained, the shadow of a giant oak, and, moved by a common impulse, the stout Bonticu and the slender Pantan simultaneously directed their pigs toward it. But a little minute of time now remained. The gallery held its breath. Then a great shout made the leaves shake and rustle. Like two perfectly synchronized machines, Anastasie and Clotilde had frozen and were pointing. They were pointing to the same spot.

Monsieur Pantan, more active than his rival, had darted to his knees, his trowel poised for action. But a large hand was laid on his shoulder, politely, and the silky voice of Monsieur Bonticu said, "If Monsieur will pardon me, may I have the honor of informing him that this is my find?"

Monsieur Pantan, trowel in mid-air, bowed as best a kneeling man can.

"I trust," he said, coolly, "that Monsieur will not consider it an impertinence if I continue to dig up what my Clotilde has, beyond peradventure, discovered, and I hope Monsieur will not take it amiss if I suggest that he step out of the light as his shadow is not exactly that of a sapling."

Monsieur Bonticu was trembling, but controlled.

"With profoundest respect," he said from deep in his chest, "I beg to be allowed to inform Monsieur that he is, if I may say so, in error. I must ask Monsieur, as a sportsman, to step back and permit me to take what is justly mine."

Monsieur Pantan's face was terrible to see, but his voice was icily formal.

"I regret," he said, "that I cannot admit Monsieur's contention. In the name of sport, and his own honor, I call upon Monsieur to retire from his position."

"That," said Monsieur Bonticu, "I will never do."

They both turned faces of appeal to the umpire. That official was bewildered.

"It is not in the rules, Messieurs," he got out, confusedly. "In my forty years as an umpire, such a thing has not happened. It is a matter to be settled between you, personally."

As he said the words, Monsieur Pantan commenced to dig furiously. Monsieur Bonticu dropped to his knees and also dug, like some great, green, panic-stricken beaver. Mounds of dirt flew up. At the same second they spied the truffle, a monster of its tribe. At the same second the plump fingers of Monsieur Bonticu and the thin fingers of Monsieur Pantan closed on it. Cries of dismay rose from the gallery.

"It is the largest of truffles," called voices. "Don't break it. Broken ones don't count." But it was too late. Monsieur Bonticu tugged violently; as violently tugged Monsieur Pantan. The truffle, indeed a giant of its species, burst asunder. The two men stood, each with his half, each glaring.

"I trust," said Monsieur Bonticu, in his hollowest death-room voice, "that Monsieur is satisfied. I have my opinion of Monsieur as a sportsman, a gentleman and a Frenchman."

"For my part," returned Monsieur Pantan, with rising passion, "it is impossible for me to consider Monsieur as any of the three."

"What's that you say?" cried Monsieur Bonticu, his big face suddenly flamingly red.

"Monsieur, in addition to the defects in his sense of honor is not also deficient in his sense of hearing," returned the smoldering Pantan.

"Monsieur is insulting."

"That is his hope."

Monsieur Bonticu was aflame with a great, seething wrath, but he had sufficient control of his sense of insult to jerk at the leash of Anastasie and say, in a tone all Montpont could hear:

"Come, Anastasie. I once did Monsieur Pantan the honor of considering him your equal. I must revise my estimate. He is not your sort of pig at all."

Monsieur Pantan's eyes were blazing dangerously, but he retained a slipping grip on his emotions long enough to say:

"Come, Clotilde. Do not demean yourself by breathing the same air as Monsieur and Madame Bonticu."

The eyes of Monsieur Bonticu, ordinarily so peaceful, now shot forth sparks. Turning a livid face to his antagonist, he cried aloud:

"Monsieur Pantan, in my opinion you are a puff-ball!"

This was too much. For to call a truffle-hunter a puff-ball is to call him a thing unspeakably vile. In the eyes of a true lover of truffles a puff-ball is a noisome, obscene thing; it is a false truffle. In truffledom it is a fighting word. With a scream of rage Monsieur Pantan advanced on the bulky Bonticu.

"By the thumbs of St. Front," he cried, "you shall pay for that, Monsieur Aristide Gontran Louis Bonticu. Here and now, before all Montpont, before all Perigord, before all France, I challenge you to a duel to the death."

Words rattled and jostled in his throat, so great was his anger. Monsieur Bonticu stood motionless; his full-moon face had gone white; the half of truffle slipped from his fingers. For he knew, as they all knew, that the dueling code of Perigord is inexorable. It is seldom nowadays that the Perigordians, even in their hottest moments, say the fighting word, for once a challenge has passed, retirement is impossible, and a duel is a most serious matter. By rigid rule, the challenger and challenged must meet at daybreak in mortal combat. At twenty paces they must each discharge two horse-pistols; then they must close on each other with sabers; should these fail to settle the issue, each man is provided with a poniard for the most intimate stages of the combat. Such duels are seldom bloodless. Monsieur Bonticu's lips formed some syllables. They were:

"You are aware of the consequences of your words, Monsieur Pantan?"

"Perfectly."

"You do not wish to withdraw them?" Monsieur Bonticu despite himself injected a hopeful note into his query.

"I withdraw? Never in this life. On the contrary, not only do I not withdraw, I reiterate," bridled Monsieur Pantan.

In a _requiescat in pace_ voice, Monsieur Bonticu said:

"So be it. You have sealed your own doom, Monsieur. I shall prepare to attend you first in the capacity of an opponent, and shortly thereafter in my professional capacity."

Monsieur Pantan sneered openly.

"Monsieur the undertaker had better consider in his remaining hours whether it is feasible to embalm himself or have a stranger do it."

With this thunderbolt of defiance, the little man turned on his heel, and stumped from the field.

Monsieur Bonticu followed at last. But he walked as one whose knees have turned to _meringue glace_. He went slowly to his little shop and sat down among the coffins. For the first time in his life their presence made him uneasy. A big new one had just come from the factory. For a long time he gazed at it; then he surveyed his own full-blown physique with a measuring eye. He shuddered. The light fell on the silver plate on the lid, and his eyes seemed to see engraved there:

MONSIEUR ARISTIDE GONTRAN LOUIS BONTICU

Died in the forty-first year of his life on the field of honor.

"_He was without peer as a hunter of truffles_."

MAY HE REST IN PEACE.

With almost a smile, he reflected that this inscription would make Monsieur Pantan very angry; yes, he would insist on it. He looked down at his fat fists and sighed profoundly, and shook his big head. They had never pulled a trigger or gripped a sword-hilt; the knife, the peaceful table knife, the fork, and the leash of Anastasie--those had occupied them. Anastasie! A globular tear rose slowly from the wells in which his eyes were set, and unchecked, wandered gently down the folds of his face. Who would care for Anastasie? With another sigh that seemed to start in the caverns of his soul, he reached out and took a dusty book from a case, and bent over it. It contained the time-honored dueling code of ancient Perigord. Suddenly, as he read, his eyes brightened, and he ceased to sigh. He snapped the book shut, took from a peg his best hat, dusted it with his elbow, and stepped out into the starry Perigord night.

* * * * *

At high noon, three days later, as duly decreed by the dueling code, Monsieur Pantan, in full evening dress, appeared at the shop of Monsieur Bonticu, accompanied by two solemn-visaged seconds, to make final arrangements for the affair of honor. They found Monsieur Bonticu sitting comfortably among his coffins. He greeted them with a serene smile. Monsieur Pantan frowned portentously.

"We have come," announced the chief second, Monsieur Duffon, the town butcher, "as the representatives of this grossly insulted gentleman to demand satisfaction. The weapons and conditions are, of course, fixed by the code. It remains only to set the date. Would Friday at dawn in the truffle preserve be entirely convenient for Monsieur?"

Monsieur Bonticu's shrug contained more regret than a hundred words could convey.

"Alas, it will be impossible, Messieurs," he said, with a deep bow.

"Impossible?"

"But yes. I assure Messieurs that nothing would give me more exquisite pleasure than to grant this gentleman"--he stressed this word--"the satisfaction that his honor"--he also stressed this word--"appears to demand. However, it is impossible."

The seconds and Monsieur Pantan looked at Monsieur Bonticu and at each other.

"But this is monstrous," exclaimed the chief second. "Is it that Monsieur refuses to fight?"

Monsieur Bonticu's slowly shaken head indicated most poignant regret.

"But no, Messieurs," he said. "I do not refuse. Is it not a question of honor? Am I not a sportsman? But, alas, I am forbidden to fight."

"Forbidden."

"Alas, yes."

"But why?"

"Because," said Monsieur Bonticu, "I am a married man."

The eyes of the three men widened; they appeared stunned by surprise. Monsieur Pantan spoke first.

"You married?" he demanded.

"But certainly."

"When?"

"Only yesterday."

"To whom? I demand proof."

"To Madame Aubison of Barbaste."

"The widow of Sergeant Aubison?"

"The same."

"I do not believe it," declared Monsieur Pantan.

Monsieur Bonticu smiled, raised his voice and called.

"Angelique! Angelique, my dove. Will you come here a little moment?"

"What? And leave the lentil soup to burn?" came an undoubtedly feminine voice from the depths of the house.

"Yes, my treasure."

"What a pest you are, Aristide," said the voice, and its owner, an ample woman of perhaps thirty, appeared in the doorway. Monsieur Bonticu waved a fat hand toward her.

"My wife, Messieurs," he said.

She bowed stiffly. The three men bowed. They said nothing. They gaped at her. She spoke to her husband.

"Is it that you take me for a Punch and Judy show, Aristide?"

"Ah, never, my rosebud," cried Monsieur Bonticu, with a placating smile. "You see, my own, these gentlemen wished----"

"There!" she interrupted. "The lentil soup! It burns." She hurried back to the kitchen.

The three men--Monsieur Pantan and his seconds--consulted together.

"Beyond question," said Monsieur Duffon, "Monsieur Bonticu cannot accept the challenge. He is married; you are not. The code says plainly: 'Opponents must be on terms of absolute equality in family responsibility.' Thus, a single man cannot fight a married one, and so forth. See. Here it is in black and white."

Monsieur Pantan was boiling as he faced the calm Bonticu.

"To think," stormed the little man, "that truffles may be hunted--yes, even eaten, by such a man! I see through you, Monsieur. But think not that a Pantan can be flouted. I have my opinion of you, Monsieur the undertaker."

Monsieur Bonticu shrugged.

"Your opinions do not interest me," he said, "and only my devotion to the cause of free speech makes me concede that you are entitled to an opinion at all. Good morning, Messieurs, good morning." He bowed them down a lane of caskets and out into the afternoon sunshine. The face of Monsieur Pantan was black.

Time went by in Perigord. Other truffle-hunting seasons came and went, but Messieurs Bonticu and Pantan entered no more competitions. They hunted, of course, the one with Anastasie, the other with Clotilde, but they hunted in solitary state, and studiously avoided each other. Then one day Monsieur Pantan's hairy countenance, stern and determined, appeared like a genie at the door of Monsieur Bonticu's shop. The rivals exchanged profound bows.

"I have the honor," said Monsieur Pantan, in his most formal manner, "to announce to Monsieur that the impediment to our meeting on the field of honor has been at last removed, and that I am now in a position to send my seconds to him to arrange that meeting. May they call to-morrow at high noon?"

"I do not understand," said Monsieur Bonticu, arching his eyebrows. "I am still married."

"I too," said Monsieur Pantan, with a grim smile, "am married."

"You? Pantan? Monsieur jests."

"If Monsieur will look in the newspaper of to-day," said Monsieur Pantan, dryly, "he will see an announcement of my marriage yesterday to Madame Marselet of Pergieux."

There was astonishment and alarm in the face of the undertaker. Then reverie seemed to wrap him round. The scurrying of footsteps, the bumble of voices, in the rooms over the shop aroused him. His face was tranquil again as he spoke.

"Will Monsieur and his seconds do me the honor of calling on me day after to-morrow?" he asked.

"As you wish," replied Monsieur Pantan, a gleam of satisfaction in his eye.

Punctual to the second, Monsieur Pantan and his friends presented themselves at the shop of Monsieur Bonticu. His face, they observed, was first worried, then smiling, then worried again.

"Will to-morrow at dawn be convenient for Monsieur?" inquired the butcher, Duffon.

Monsieur Bonticu gestured regret with his shoulders, and said:

"I am desolated with chagrin, Messieurs, believe me, but it is impossible."

"Impossible. It cannot be," cried Monsieur Pantan. "Monsieur has one wife. I have one wife. Our responsibilities are equal. Is it that Monsieur is prepared to swallow his word of insult?"

"Never," declared Monsieur Bonticu. "I yearn to encounter Monsieur in mortal combat. But, alas, it is not I, but Nature that intervenes. I have, only this morning, become a father, Messieurs."

As if in confirmation there came from the room above the treble wail of a new infant.

"Behold!" exclaimed Monsieur Bonticu, with a wave of his hand.

Monsieur Pantan's face was purple.

"This is too much," he raged. "But wait, Monsieur. But wait." He clapped his high hat on his head and stamped out of the shop.

Truffles were hunted and the days flowed by and Monsieur Pantan and his seconds one high noon again called upon Monsieur Bonticu, who greeted them urbanely, albeit he appeared to have lost weight and tiny worry-wrinkles were visible in his face.

"Monsieur," began the chief second, "may I have the honor----"

"I'll speak for myself," interrupted Monsieur Pantan. "With my own voice I wish to inform Monsieur that nothing can now prevent our meeting, at dawn to-morrow. To-day, Monsieur the undertaker, I, too, became a father!"

The news seemed to interest but not to stagger Monsieur Bonticu. His smile was sad as he said:

"You are too late, Monsieur the apothecary and veterinarian. Two days ago I, also, became a father again."

Monsieur Pantan appeared to be about to burst, so terrible was his rage.

"But wait," he screamed, "but wait." And he rushed out.

Next day Monsieur Pantan and his seconds returned. The moustachios of the little man were on end with excitement and his eye was triumphant.

"We meet to-morrow at daybreak," he announced.

"Ah, that it were possible," sighed Monsieur Bonticu. "But the code forbids. As I said yesterday, Monsieur has a wife and a child, while I have a wife and children. I regret our inequality, but I cannot deny it."

"Spare your regrets, Monsieur," rejoined the small man. "I, too, have two children now."

"You?" Monsieur Bonticu stared, puzzled. "Yesterday you had but one. It cannot be, Monsieur."

"It can be," cried Monsieur Pantan. "Yesterday I adopted one!"

The peony face of Monsieur Bonticu did not blanch at this intelligence. Again he smiled with an infinite sadness.

"I appreciate," he said, "Monsieur Pantan's courtesy in affording me this opportunity, but, alas, he has not been in possession of the facts. By an almost unpardonable oversight I neglected to inform Monsieur that I had become the father not of one child, but of two. Twins, Messieurs. Would you care to inspect them?"

Monsieur Pantan's face was contorted with a wrath shocking to witness. He bit his lip; he clenched his fist.

"The end is not yet," he shouted. "No, no, Monsieur. By the thumbs of St. Front, I shall adopt another child."

At high noon next day three men in grave parade went down the Rue Victor Hugo and entered the shop of Monsieur Bonticu. Monsieur Pantan spoke.

"The adoption has been made," he announced. "Here are the papers. I, too, have a wife and three children. Shall we meet at dawn to-morrow?"

Monsieur Bonticu looked up from his account books with a rueful smile.

"Ah, if it could be," he said. "But it cannot be."

"It cannot be?" echoed Monsieur Pantan.

"No," said Monsieur Bonticu, sadly. "Last night my aged father-in-law came to live with me. He is a new, and weighty responsibility, Monsieur."

Monsieur Pantan appeared numbed for a moment; then, with a glare of concentrated fury, he rasped.

"I, too, have an aged father-in-law."

He slammed the shop door after him.

* * * * *

That night when Monsieur Bonticu went to the immaculate little stye back of his shop to see if the pride of his heart, Anastasie, was comfortable, to chat with her a moment, and to present her with a morsel of truffle to keep up her interest in the chase, he found her lying on her side moaning faintly. Between moans she breathed with a labored wheeze, and in her gentle blue eyes stood the tears of suffering. She looked up feebly, piteously, at Monsieur Bonticu. With a cry of horror and alarm he bent over her.

"Anastasie! My Anastasie! What is it? What ails my brave one?" She grunted softly, short, stifled grunts of anguish. He made a swift examination. Expert in all matters pertaining to the pig, he perceived that she had contracted an acute case of that rare and terrible disease, known locally as Perigord pip, and he knew, only too well, that her demise was but a question of hours. His Anastasie would never track down another truffle unless---- He leaned weakly against the wall and clasped his warm brow. There was but one man in all the world who could cure her. And that man was Pantan, the veterinarian. His "Elixir Pantan," a secret specific, was the only known cure for the dread malady.

Pride and love wrestled within the torn soul of the stricken Bonticu. To humble himself before his rival--it was unthinkable. He could see the sneer on Monsieur Pantan's olive face; he could hear his cutting words of refusal. The dew of conflicting emotions dampened the brow of Monsieur Bonticu. Anastasie whimpered in pain. He could not stand it. He struck his chest a resounding blow of decision. He reached for his hat.

Monsieur Bonticu knocked timidly at the door of the apothecary-veterinarian's house. A head appeared at a window.

"Who is it?" demanded a shrill, cross, female voice.

"It is I. Bonticu. I wish to speak with Monsieur Pantan."

"Nice time to come," complained the lady. She shouted into the darkness of the room: "Pantan! Pantan, you sleepy lout. Wake up. There's a great oaf of a man outside wanting to speak to you."

"Patience, my dear Rosalie, patience," came the voice of Monsieur Pantan; it was strangely meek. Presently the head of Monsieur Pantan, all nightcap and moustachios, was protruded from the window.

"You have come to fight?" he asked.

"But no."

"Bah! Then why wake me up this cold night?"

"It is a family matter, Monsieur," said the shivering Bonticu. "A matter the most pressing."

"Is it that Monsieur has adopted an orphanage," inquired Pantan. "Or brought nine old aunts to live with him?"

"No, no, Monsieur. It is most serious. It is Anastasie. She--is--dying."

"A thousand regrets, but I cannot act as pall-bearer," returned Monsieur Pantan, preparing to shut the window. "Good-night."

"I beg Monsieur to attend a little second," cried Monsieur Bonticu. "You can save her."

"I save her?" Monsieur Pantan's tone suggested that the idea was deliciously absurd.

"Yes, yes, yes," cried Bonticu, catching at a straw. "You alone. She has the Perigord pip, Monsieur."

"Ah, indeed."

"Yes, one cannot doubt it."

"Most amusing."

"You are cruel, Monsieur," cried Bonticu. "She suffers, ah, how she suffers."

"She will not suffer long," said Pantan, coldly.

There was a sob in Bonticu's voice as he said:

"I entreat Monsieur to save her. I entreat him as a sportsman."

In the window Monsieur Pantan seemed to be thinking deeply.

"I entreat him as a doctor. The ethics of his profession demand----"

"You have used me abominably, Monsieur," came the voice of Pantan, "but when you appeal to me as a sportsman and a doctor I cannot refuse. Wait."

The window banged down and in a second or so Monsieur Pantan, in hastily donned attire, joined his rival and silently they walked through the night to the bedside of the dying Anastasie. Once there, Monsieur Pantan's manner became professional, intense, impersonal.

"Warm water. Buckets of it," he ordered.

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Olive oil and cotton."

"Yes, Monsieur."

With trembling hands Monsieur Bonticu brought the things desired, and hovered about, speaking gently to Anastasie, calling her pet names, soothing her. The apothecary-veterinarian was busy. He forced the contents of a huge black bottle down her throat. He anointed her with oil, water and unknown substances. He ordered his rival about briskly.

"Rub her belly."

Bonticu rubbed violently.

"Pull her tail."

Bonticu pulled.

"Massage her limbs."

Bonticu massaged till he was gasping for breath.

The light began to come back to the eyes of Anastasie, the rose hue to her pale snout; she stopped whimpering. Monsieur Pantan rose with a smile.

"The crisis is passed," he announced. "She will live. What in the name of all the devils----"

This last ejaculation was blurred and smothered, for the overjoyed Bonticu, with the impulsiveness of his warm Southern nature, had thrown his arms about the little man and planted loud kisses on both hairy cheeks. They stood facing each other, oddly shy.

"If Monsieur would do me the honor," began Monsieur Bonticu, a little thickly, "I have some ancient port. A glass or two after that walk in the cold would be good for Monsieur, perhaps."

"If Monsieur insists," murmured Pantan.

Monsieur Bonticu vanished and reappeared with a cob-webbed bottle. They drank. Pantan smacked his lips. Timidly, Monsieur Bonticu said:

"I can never sufficiently repay Monsieur for his kindness."

He glanced at Anastasie who slept tranquilly. "She is very dear to me."

"Do I not know?" replied Monsieur Pantan. "Have I not Clotilde?"

"I trust she is in excellent health, Monsieur."

"She was never better," replied Monsieur Pantan. He finished his glass, and it was promptly refilled. Only the sound of Anastasie's regular breathing could be heard. Monsieur Pantan put down his glass. In a manner that tried to be casual he remarked,

"I will not attempt to conceal from Monsieur that his devotion to his Anastasie has touched me. Believe me, Monsieur Bonticu, I am not unaware of the sacrifice you made in coming to me for her sake."

Monsieur Bonticu, deeply moved, bowed.

"Monsieur would have done the same for his Clotilde," he said. "Monsieur has demonstrated himself to be a thorough sportsman. I am grateful to him. I'd have missed Anastasie."

"But naturally."

"Ah, yes," went on Monsieur Bonticu. "When my wife scolds and the children scream, it is to her I go for a little talk. She never argues."

Monsieur Pantan looked up from a long draught.

"Does your wife scold and your children scream?" he asked.

"Alas, but too often," answered Monsieur Bonticu.

"You should hear my Rosalie," sighed Monsieur Pantan. "I too seek consolation as you do. I talk with my Clotilde."

Monsieur Bonticu nodded, sympathetically.

"My wife is always nagging me for more money," he said with a sudden burst of confidence. "And the undertaking business, my dear Pantan, is not what it was."

"Do I not know?" said Pantan. "When folks are well we both suffer."

"I stagger beneath my load," sighed Bonticu.

"My load is no less light," remarked Pantan.

"If my family responsibilities should increase," observed Bonticu, "it would be little short of a calamity."

"If mine did," said Pantan, "it would be a tragedy."

"And yet," mused Bonticu, "our responsibilities seem to go on increasing."

"Alas, it is but too true."

"The statesmen are talking of limiting armaments," remarked Bonticu.

"An excellent idea," said Pantan, warmly.

"Can it be that they are more astute than two veteran truffle-hunters?"

"They could not possibly be, my dear Bonticu."

There was a pregnant pause. Monsieur Bonticu broke the silence.

"In the heat of the chase," he said, "one does things and says things one afterwards regrets."

"Yes. That is true."

"In his excitement one might even so far forget himself as to call a fellow sportsman--a really excellent fellow--a puff-ball."

"That is true. One might."

Suddenly Monsieur Bonticu thrust his fat hand toward Monsieur Pantan.

"You are not a puff-ball, Armand," he said. "You never were a puff-ball!"

Tears leaped to the little man's eyes. He seized the extended hand in both of his and pressed it.

"Aristide!" was all he could say. "Aristide!"

"We shall drink," cried Bonticu, "to the art of truffle-hunting."

"The science--" corrected Pantan, gently.

"To the art-science of truffle-hunting," cried Bonticu, raising his glass.

The moon smiled down on Perigord. On the ancient, twisted streets of Montpont it smiled with particular brightness. Down the Rue Victor Hugo, in the middle of the street, went two men, a very stout big man and a very thin little man, arm in arm, and singing, for all Montpont, and all the world, to hear, a snatch of an old song from some forgotten revue.

"_Oh, Gaby, darling Gaby.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Why don't you come to me?
Bam! Bam! Bam!
And jump in the arms of your own true love,
While the wind blows chilly and cold?
Bam! Bam! Bam!_"

XII: _The $25,000 Jaw_

"Rather thirsty this morning, eh, Mr. Addicks?" inquired Cowdin, the chief purchasing agent. The "Mister" was said with a long, hissing "s" and was distinctly not meant as a title of respect.

Cowdin, as he spoke, rested his two square hairy hands on Croly Addicks' desk, and this enabled him to lean forward and thrust his well-razored knob of blue-black jaw within a few inches of Croly Addicks' face.

"Too bad, Mr. Addicks, too bad," said Cowdin in a high, sharp voice. "Do you realize, Mr. Addicks, that every time you go up to the water cooler you waste fifteen seconds of the firm's time? I might use a stronger word than 'waste,' but I'll spare your delicate feelings. Do you think you can control your thirst until you take your lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria, or shall I have your desk piped with ice water, Mr. Addicks?"

Croly Addicks drew his convex face as far away as he could from the concave features of the chief purchasing agent and muttered, "Had kippered herring for breakfast."

A couple of the stenographers tittered. Croly's ears reddened and his hands played nervously with his blue-and-white polka-dot necktie. Cowdin eyed him for a contemptuous half second, then rotated on his rubber heel and prowled back to his big desk in the corner of the room.

Croly Addicks, inwardly full of red revolution, outwardly merely flustered and intimidated, rustled among the piles of invoices and forms on his desk, and tried desperately to concentrate on his task as assistant to the assistant purchasing agent of the Pierian Piano Company, a vast far-flung enterprise that boasted, with only slight exaggeration, "We bring melody to a million homes." He hated Cowdin at all times, and particularly when he called him "Mr. Addicks." That "Mister" hurt worse than a slap on a sunburned shoulder. What made the hate almost beyond bearing was the realization on Croly's part that it was impotent.

"Gawsh," murmured the blond stenographer from the corner of her mouth, after the manner of convicts, "Old Grizzly's pickin' on the chinless wonder again. I don't see how Croly stands it. I wouldn't if I was him."

"Aw, wadda yuh expeck of Chinless?" returned the brunette stenographer disdainfully as she crackled paper to conceal her breach of the office rules against conversation. "Feller with ingrown jaws was made to pick on."

At noon Croly went out to his lunch, not to the big hotel, as Cowdin had suggested, but to a crowded basement full of the jangle and clatter of cutlery and crockery, and the smell and sputter of frying liver. The name of this cave was the Help Yourself Buffet. Its habitues, mostly clerks like Croly, pronounced "buffet" to rhyme with "rough it," which was incorrect but apt.

The place was, as its patrons never tired of reminding one another as they tried with practiced eye and hand to capture the largest sandwiches, a conscience beanery. As a matter of fact, one's conscience had a string tied to it by a cynical management.

The system is simple. There are piles of food everywhere, with prominent price tags. The hungry patron seizes and devours what he wishes. He then passes down a runway and reports, to the best of his mathematical and ethical ability, the amount his meal has cost--usually, for reasons unknown, forty-five cents. The report is made to a small automaton of a boy, with a blase eye and a brassy voice. He hands the patron a ticket marked 45 and at the same instant screams in a sirenic and incredulous voice, "Fawty-fi'." Then the patron passes on down the alley and pays the cashier at the exit. The purpose of the boy's violent outcry is to signal the spotter, who roves among the foods, a derby hat cocked over one eye and an untasted sandwich in his hand, so that persons deficient in conscience may not basely report their total as forty-five when actually they have eaten ninety cents' worth.

On this day, when Croly Addicks had finished his modest lunch, the spotter was lurking near the exit. Several husky-looking young men passed him, and brazenly reported totals of twenty cents, when it was obvious that persons of their brawn would not be content with a lunch costing less than seventy-five; but the spotter noting their bull necks and bellicose air let them pass. But when Croly approached the desk and reported forty-five the spotter pounced on him. Experience had taught the spotter the type of man one may pounce on without fear of sharp words or resentful blows.

"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little mistake?"

"Me?" quavered Croly. He was startled and he looked guilty, as only the innocent can look.

"Yes, you," said the spotter, scowling at the weak outlines of Croly's countenance.

"No," jerked out Croly. "Forty-five's correct." He tried to move along toward the cashier, but the spotter's bulk blocked the exit alley.

"Ain't you the guy I seen layin' away a double portion of strawb'ry shortcake wit' cream?" asked the spotter sternly.

Croly hoped that it was not apparent that his upper lip was trembling; his hands went up to his polka-dot tie and fidgeted with it. He had paused yearningly over the strawberry shortcake; but he had decided he couldn't afford it.

"Didn't have shortcake," he said huskily.

"Oh, no!" rejoined the spotter sarcastically, appealing to the ring of interested faces that had now crowded about. "I s'pose that white stuff on your upper lip ain't whipped cream?"

"It's milk," mumbled Croly. "All I had was milk and oatmeal crackers and apple pie. Honest."

The spotter snorted dubiously.

"Some guy," he declared loudly, "tucked away a double order of strawb'ry shortcake and a hamboiger steak, and it wasn't me. So come awn, young feller, you owe the house ninety cents, so cut out the arggament."

"I--I----" began Croly, incoherently rebellious; but it was clear that the crowd believed him guilty of the conscienceless swindle; so he quailed before the spotter's accusing eye, and said, "Oh, well, have it your own way. You got me wrong, but I guess you have to pick on little fellows to keep your job." He handed over ninety cents to the cashier.

"You'll never see my face in this dump again," muttered Croly savagely over his shoulder.

"That won't make me bust out cryin', Chinless," called the spotter derisively.

Croly stumbled up the steps, his eyes moist, his heart pumping fast. Chinless! The old epithet. The old curse. It blistered his soul.

Moodily he sought out a bench in Madison Square, hunched himself down and considered his case. To-day, he felt, was the critical day of his life; it was his thirtieth birthday.

His mind flashed back, as you've seen it done in the movies, to a scene the night before, in which he had had a leading role.

"Emily," he had said to the loveliest girl in the world, "will you marry me?"

Plainly Emily Mackie had expected something of the sort, and after the fashion of the modern business girl had given the question calm and clear-visioned consideration.

"Croly," she said softly, "I like you. You are a true friend. You are kind and honest and you work hard. But oh, Croly dear, we couldn't live on twenty-two dollars and fifty cents a week; now could we?"

That was Croly's present salary after eleven years with the Pierian Piano Company, and he had to admit that Emily was right; they could not live on it.

"But, dearest Emily," he argued, "to-morrow they appoint a new assistant purchasing agent, and I'm in line for the job. It pays fifty a week."

"But are you sure you'll get it?"

His face fell.

"N-no," he admitted, "but I deserve it. I know the job about ten times better than any of the others, and I've been there longest."

"You thought they'd promote you last year, you know," she reminded him.

"And so they should have," he replied, flushing. "If it hadn't been for old Grizzly Cowdin! He thinks I couldn't make good because I haven't one of those underslung jaws like his."

"He's a brute!" cried Emily. "You know more about the piano business than he does."

"I think I do," said Croly, "but he doesn't. And he's the boss."

"Oh, Croly, if you'd only assert yourself----"

"I guess I never learned how," said Croly sadly.

As he sat there on the park bench, plagued by the demon of introspection, he had to admit that he was not the pugnacious type, the go-getter sort that Cowdin spoke of often and admiringly. He knew his job; he could say that of himself in all fairness, for he had spent many a night studying it; some day, he told himself, they'd be surprised, the big chiefs and all of them, to find out how much he did know about the piano business. But would they ever find out?

Nobody, reflected Croly, ever listened when he talked. There was nothing about him that carried conviction. It had always been like that since his very first day in school when the boys had jeeringly noted his rather marked resemblance to a haddock, and had called out, "Chinless, Chinless, stop tryin' to swallow your face."

Around his chinlessness his character had developed; no one had ever taken him seriously, so quite naturally he found it hard to take himself seriously. It was inevitable that his character should become as chinless as his face.

His apprenticeship under the thumb and chin of the domineering Cowdin had not tended to decrease his youthful timidity. Cowdin, with a jut of jaw like a paving block, had bullied Croly for years. More than once Croly had yearned burningly to plant his fist squarely on that blue-black prong of chin, and he had even practiced up on a secondhand punching bag with this end in view. But always he weakened at the crucial instant. He let his resentment escape through the safety valve of intense application to the business of his firm. It comforted him somewhat to think that even the big-jawed president, Mr. Flagstead, probably didn't have a better grasp of the business as a whole than he, chinless Croly Addicks, assistant to the assistant purchasing agent. But--and he groaned aloud at the thought--his light was hidden under a bushel of chinlessness.

Someone had left a crumpled morning edition of an evening paper on the bench, and Croly glanced idly at it. From out the pages stared the determined incisive features of a young man very liberally endowed with jaw. Enviously Croly read the caption beneath the picture, "The fighting face of Kid McNulty, the Chelsea Bearcat, who boxes Leonard." With a sigh Croly tossed the paper away.

He glanced up at the Metropolitan Tower clock and decided that he had just time enough for a cooling beaker of soda. He reached the soda fountain just ahead of three other thirsty men. By every right he should have been served first. But the clerk, a lofty youth with the air of a grand duke, after one swift appraising glance at the place where Croly's chin should have been, disregarded the murmured "Pineapple phosphate, please," and turned to serve the others. Of them he inquired solicitously enough, "What's yourn?" But when he came to Croly he shot him an impatient look and asked sharply, "Well, speak up, can't yuh?" The cool drink turned to galling acid as Croly drank it.

He sprinted for his office, trying to cling to a glimmering hope that Cowdin, despite his waspishness of the morning, had given him the promotion. He reached his desk a minute late.

Cowdin prowled past and remarked with a cutting geniality, harder to bear than a curse, "Well, Mr. Addicks, you dallied too long over your lobster and quail, didn't you?"

Under his desk Croly's fists knotted tightly. He made no reply. To-morrow, probably, he'd have an office of his own, and be almost free from Cowdin's ill-natured raillery. At this thought he bent almost cheerfully over his stack of work.

A girl rustled by and thumb-tacked a small notice on the bulletin board. Croly's heart ascended to a point immediately below his Adam's apple and stuck there, for the girl was Cowdin's secretary, and Croly knew what announcement that notice contained. He knew it was against the Spartan code of office etiquette to consult the board during working hours, but he thought of Emily, and what the announcement meant to him, and he rose and with quick steps crossed the room and read the notice.

Ellis G. Baldwin has this day been promoted to assistant
purchasing agent.

(Signed) SAMUEL COWDIN C. P. A.

Croly Addicks had to steady himself against the board; the black letters on the white card jigged before his eyes; his stomach felt cold and empty. Baldwin promoted over his head! Blatant Baldwin, who was never sure of his facts, but was always sure of himself. Cocksure incompetent Baldwin! But--but--he had a bulldog jaw.

Croly Addicks, feeling old and broken, turned around slowly, to find Cowdin standing behind him, a wry smile on his lips, his pin-point eyes fastened on Croly's stricken face.

"Well, Mr. Addicks," purred the chief purchasing agent, "are you thinking of going out for a spin in your limousine or do you intend to favor us with a little work to-day?" He tilted his jaw toward Croly.

"I--I thought I was to get that job," began Croly Addicks, fingering his necktie.

Cowdin produced a rasping sound by rubbing his chin with his finger.

"Oh, did you, indeed?" he asked. "And what made you think that, Mr. Addicks?"

"I've been here longest," faltered Croly, "and I want to get married, and I know the job best, and I've been doing the work ever since Sebring quit, Mr. Cowdin."

For a long time Cowdin did not reply, but stood rubbing his chin and smiling pityingly at Croly Addicks, until Croly, his nerves tense, wanted to scream. Then Cowdin measuring his words spoke loud enough for the others in the room to hear.

"Mr. Addicks," he said, "that job needs a man with a punch. And you haven't a punch, Mr. Addicks. Mr. Addicks, that job requires a fighter. And you're not a fighter, Mr. Addicks. Mr. Addicks, that job requires a man with a jaw on him. And you haven't any jaw on you, Mr. Addicks. Get me?" He thrust out his own peninsula of chin.

It was then that Croly Addicks erupted like a long suppressed volcano. All the hate of eleven bullied years was concentrated in his knotted hand as he swung it swishingly from his hip and landed it flush on the outpointing chin.

An ox might have withstood that punch, but Cowdin was no ox. He rolled among the waste-paper baskets. Snorting furiously he scrambled to his feet and made a bull-like rush at Croly. Trembling in every nerve Croly Addicks swung at the blue-black mark again, and Cowdin reeled against a desk. As he fell his thick fingers closed on a cast-iron paperweight that lay on the desk.

Croly Addicks had a blurred split-second vision of something black shooting straight at his face; then he felt a sharp brain-jarring shock; then utter darkness.

When the light came back to him again it was in Bellevue Hospital. His face felt queer, numb and enormous; he raised his hand feebly to it; it appeared to be covered with concrete bandages.

"Don't touch it," cautioned the nurse. "It's in a cast, and is setting."

* * * * *

It took long weeks for it to set; they were black weeks for Croly, brightened only by a visit or two from Emily Mackie. At last the nurse removed the final bandage and he was discharged from the hospital.

Outside the hospital gate Croly paused in the sunlight. Not many blocks away he saw the shimmer of the East River, and he faced toward it. He could bury his catastrophe there, and forget his smashed-up life, his lost job and his shattered chances of ever marrying. Who would have him now? At best it meant the long weary climb up from the very bottom, and he was past thirty. He took a half step in the direction of the river. He stopped; he felt a hand plucking timidly at his coat sleeve.

The person who plucked at his sleeve was a limp youth with a limp cigarette and vociferous checked clothes and cap. There was no mistaking the awe in his tone as he spoke.

"Say," said the limp youth, "ain't you Kid McNulty, de Chelsea Bearcat?"

He? Croly Addicks? Taken for Kid McNulty, the prize fighter? A wave of pleasure swept over the despondent Croly. Life seemed suddenly worth living. He had been mistaken for a prize fighter!

He hardened his voice.

"That's me," he said.

"Gee," said the limp youth, "I seen yuh box Leonard. Gee, that was a battle! Say, next time yuh meet him you'll knock him for a row of circus tents, won't yuh?"

"I'll knock him for a row of aquariums," promised Croly. And he jauntily faced about and strolled away from the river and toward Madison Square, followed by the admiring glances of the limp youth.

He felt the need of refreshment and pushed into a familiar soda shop. The same lofty grand duke was on duty behind the marble counter, and was taking advantage of a lull by imparting a high polish to his finger nails, and consequently he did not observe the unobtrusive entrance of Croly Addicks.

Croly tapped timidly with his dime on the counter; the grand duke looked up.

"Pineapple phosphate, please," said Croly in a voice still weak from his hospital days.

The grand duke shot from his reclining position as if attached to a spring.

"Yessir, yessir, right away," he smiled, and hustled about his task.

Shortly he placed the beverage before the surprised Croly.

"Is it all right? Want a little more sirup?" inquired the grand duke anxiously.

Croly, almost bewildered by this change of demeanor, raised the glass to his lips. As he did so he saw the reflection of a face in the glistening mirror opposite. He winced, and set down the glass, untasted.

He stared, fascinated, overwhelmed; it must surely be his face, since his body was attached to it, but how could it be? The eyes were the mild blue eyes of Croly Addicks, but the face was the face of a stranger--and a startling-looking stranger, at that!

Croly knew of course that it had been necessary to rebuild his face, shattered by the missile hurled by Cowdin, but in the hospital they had kept mirrors from him, and he had discovered, but only by sense of touch, that his countenance had been considerably altered. But he had never dreamed that the transformation would be so radical.

In the clear light he contemplated himself, and understood why he had been mistaken for the Chelsea Bearcat. Kid McNulty had a large amount of jaw, but he never had a jaw like the stranger with Croly Addicks' eyes who stared back, horrified, at Croly from the soda-fountain mirror. The plastic surgeons had done their work well; there was scarcely any scar. But they had built from Croly's crushed bones a chin that protruded like the prow of a battleship.

The mariners of mythology whom the sorceress changed into pigs could hardly have been more perplexed and alarmed than Croly Addicks. He had, in his thirty years, grown accustomed to his meek apologetic face. The face that looked back at him was not meek or apologetic. It was distinctly a hard face; it was a determined, forbidding face; it was almost sinister.

Croly had the uncanny sensation of having had his soul slipped into the body of another man, an utter stranger. Inside he was the same timorous young assistant to the assistant purchasing agent--out of work; outside he was a fearsome being, a dangerous-looking man, who made autocratic soda dispensers jump.

To him came a sinking, lost feeling; a cold emptiness; the feeling of a gentle Doctor Jekyll who wakes to find himself in the shell of a fierce Mr. Hyde. For a second or two Croly Addicks regretted that he had not gone on to the river.

The voice of the soda clerk brought him back to the world.

"If your drink isn't the way you like it, sir," said the grand duke amiably, "just say the word and I'll mix you up another."

Croly started up.

"'Sall right," he murmured, and fumbled his way out to Madison Square.

He decided to live a while longer, face and all. It was something to be deferred to by soda clerks.

He sank down on a bench and considered what he should do. At the twitter of familiar voices he looked up and saw the blond stenographer and the brunette stenographer from his former company passing on the way to lunch.

He rose, advanced a step toward them, tipped his hat and said, "Hello."

The blond stenographer drew herself up regally, as she had seen some one do in the movies, and chilled Croly with an icy stare.

"Don't get so fresh!" she said coldly. "To whom do you think you're speaking to?"

"You gotta crust," observed the brunette, outdoing her companion in crushing hauteur. "Just take yourself and your baby scarer away, Mister Masher, and get yourself a job posing for animal crackers."

They swept on as majestically as tight skirts and French heels would permit, and Croly, confused, subsided back on his bench again. Into his brain, buzzing now from the impact of so many new sensations, came a still stronger impression that he was not Croly Addicks at all, but an entirely different and fresh-born being, unrecognized by his old associates. He pondered on the trick fate had played on him until hunger beckoned him to the Help Yourself Buffet. He was inside before he realized what he was doing, and before he recalled his vow never to enter there again. The same spotter was moving in and out among the patrons, the same derby cocked over one eye, and an untasted sandwich, doubtless the same one, in his hand. He paid no special heed to the renovated Croly Addicks.

Croly was hungry and under the spotter's very nose he helped himself to hamburger steak and a double order of strawberry shortcake with thick cream. Satisfied, he started toward the blase check boy with the brassy voice; as he went his hand felt casually in his change pocket, and he stopped short, gripped by horror. The coins he counted there amounted to exactly forty-five cents and his meal totaled a dollar at least. Furthermore, that was his last cent in the world. He cast a quick frightened glance around him. The spotter was lounging against the check desk, and his beady eye seemed focused on Croly Addicks. Croly knew that his only chance lay in bluffing; he drew in a deep breath, thrust forward his new chin, and said to the boy, "Forty-five." "Fawty-fi'," screamed the boy. The spotter pricked up his ears.

"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little mistake?"

Summoning every ounce of nerve he could Croly looked straight back into the spotter's eyes.

"No," said Croly loudly.

For the briefest part of a second the spotter wavered between duty and discretion. Then the beady eyes dropped and he murmured, "Oh, I beg pahdun. I thought you was the guy that just got outside of a raft of strawb'ry shortcake and hamboiger. Guess I made a little mistake myself."

With the brisk firm step of a conqueror Croly Addicks strode into the air, away from the scene he had once left so humiliated.

Again, for many reflective minutes he occupied one of those chairs of philosophy, a park bench, and revolved in his mind the problem, "Where do I go from here?" The vacuum in his pockets warned him that his need of a job was imperative. Suddenly he released his thoughtful clutch on his new jaw, and his eyes brightened and his spine straightened with a startling idea that at once fascinated and frightened him. He would try to get his old job back again.

Inside him the old shrinking Croly fought it out with the new Croly.

"Don't be foolish!" bleated the old Croly. "You haven't the nerve to face Cowdin again."

"Buck up!" argued back the new Croly. "You made that soda clerk hop, and that spotter quail. The worst Cowdin can say is 'No!'"

"You haven't a chance in the piano company, anyhow," demurred the old Croly. "They know you too well; your old reputation is against you. The spineless jellyfish class at twenty-two-fifty per is your limit there."

"Nonsense," declared the new Croly masterfully. "It's the one job you know. Ten to one they need you this minute. You've invested eleven years of training in it. Make that experience count."