Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The day was breaking; a calm, clear, lovely day of June. The light began to steal into the poor apartment where little Francis, the son of Jacques and Madeline Legrand, lay very near death's door. He was seven years old; three weeks ago, a fair-haired, rosy, little boy, as happy as a bird. But one night, when he came home from school, his head was giddy and his hands were burning. Ever since he had lain there in his cot. To-night he did not wander in his mind; but for two days his strange listlessness had alarmed the doctor. He lay there sad and quiet, as if at seven years old he was already tired of life; rolling his head upon the bolster, his thin lips never smiling, his eyes staring at one knew not what. He would take nothing--neither medicine, syrup, nor beef-tea.

"Is there anything that you would like?" they asked him.

"No," he answered, "nothing."

"This must be remedied," the doctor said. "This torpor is alarming. You are his parents, and you know him best. Try to discover what will interest and amuse him." And the doctor went away.

To amuse him! True, they knew him well, their little Francis. They knew how it delighted him, when he was well, to go into the fields, and to come home, loaded with white hawthorn blossoms, riding on his father's shoulders. Jacques had already bought him gilded soldiers, figures, "Chinese shadows," to be shown upon a screen. He placed them on the sick child's bed, made them dance before his eyes, and, scarcely able to keep back his tears, strove to make him laugh.

"Look, there is the Broken Bridge. Tra-la-la! And there is a general. You saw one once at Boulogne Wood, don't you remember? If you drink your medicine like a good boy, I will buy you a real one, with a cloth tunic and gold epaulettes. Would you like to have a general?"

"No," said the sick child, his voice dry with fever.

"Would you like a pistol and bullets, or a crossbow?"

"No," replied the little voice, decisively.

And so it was with everything--even with balloons and jumping-jacks. Still, while the parents looked at each other in despair, the little voice responded, "No! No! No!"

"But what is there you would like, then, darling?" said his mother. "Come, whisper to me--to mamma." And she laid her cheek beside him on the pillow.

The sick boy raised himself in bed, and, throwing out his eager hands towards some unseen object, cried out, as in command and in entreaty, "I want _Slap-bang_!"

II.

"Slap-bang!"

The poor mother looked at her husband with a frightened glance. What was the little fellow saying? Was the terrible delirium coming back again? "Slap-bang!" She knew not what that signified. She was frightened at the strangeness of the words, which now the sick boy, with the perversity of illness--as if, having screwed his courage up to put his dream in words, he was resolved to speak of nothing else--repeated without ceasing:--

"Slap-bang! I want Slap-bang!"

"What does he mean?" she said, distractedly, grasping her husband's hand. "Oh, he is lost!"

But Jacques' rough face wore a smile of wonder and relief, like that of one condemned to death who sees a chance of liberty.

Slap-bang! He remembered well the morning of Whit-Monday, when he had taken Francis to the circus. He could hear still the child's delighted laughter, when the clown--the beautiful clown, all be-starred with golden spangles, and with a huge many-coloured butterfly glittering on the back of his black costume--skipped across the track, tripped up the riding-master by the heels, took a walk upon his hands, or threw up to the gas-light the soft felt caps, which he dexterously caught upon his skull, where, one by one, they formed a pyramid; while at every trick and every jest, his large droll face expanding with a smile, he uttered the same catch-word, sometimes to a roll of music from the band, "Slap-bang!" And every time he uttered it the audience roared and the little fellow shouted with delight.

Slap-bang! It was this Slap-bang, the circus clown, he who kept half the city laughing, whom little Francis wished to see, and whom, alas! he could not see as he lay pale and feeble in his little bed.

That night Jacques brought the child a jointed clown, ablaze with spangles, which he had bought at a high price. Four days' wages would not pay for it; but he would willingly have given the price of a year's labour, could he have brought a smile to the thin lips of the sick boy.

The child looked for a moment at the toy which sparkled on the bed-quilt. Then he said, sadly, "That is not Slap-bang. I want to see Slap-bang!"

If only Jacques could have wrapped him in the bed-clothes, borne him to the circus, shown him the clown dancing under the blazing gas-lights, and said, "Look there!"

But Jacques did better still. He went to the circus, obtained the clown's address, and then, with legs tottering with nervousness and agitation, climbed slowly up the stairs which led to the great man's apartment. It was a bold task to undertake! Yet actors, after all, go sometimes to recite or sing at rich men's houses. Who knew but that the clown, at any price he liked, would consent to go to say good-day to little Francis? If so, what matter his reception?

But was _this_ Slap-bang, this charming person, called Monsieur Moreno, who received him in his study like a doctor, in the midst of books and pictures, and all the luxury of art! Jacques looked at him, and could not recognise the clown. He turned and twisted his felt hat between his fingers. The other waited. At last the poor fellow began to stammer out excuses: "It was unpardonable--a thing unheard of--that he had come to ask; but the fact was, it was about his little boy--such a pretty little boy, sir! and so clever! Always first in his class--except in arithmetic, which he did not understand. A dreamy little chap--too dreamy--as you may see"--Jacques stopped and stammered; then screwing up his courage he continued with a rush--"as you may see by the fact that he wants to see you, that he thinks of nothing else, that you are before him always, like a star which he has set his mind on----"

Jacques stopped. Great beads stood on his forehead and his face was very pale. He dared not look at the clown, whose eyes were fixed upon him. What had he dared to ask the great Slap-bang? What if the latter took him for a madman, and showed him to the door?

"Where do you live?" demanded Slap-bang.

"Oh! close by. The Rue des Abbesses!"

"Come!" said the other; "the little fellow wants to see Slap-bang--well, he _shall_ see him."