Chapter VI: Part 6

They seated themselves side by side and close together, with their backs to Papa Labesse, some fifty metres distant, and La Trompette opened her basket. Presently Bombiste lowered his left elbow and raised his right in the act of drawing a cork, and then raised his left again and took a long draught from the bottle. At the same moment Papa Labesse swung round a quarter circle to the right, as if upon a pivot, and began to crawl very slowly forward.

"Chouette!" said Bombiste to La Trompette, biting a great mouthful from a slice of rye bread and cheese, "c'est du suisse!"

"Thou deservest water and a raw turnip!" replied the woman, assuming a tone of angry reproach. "If it were not I, thou knowest, long since thou wouldst have been put ashore, heart of an artichoke--va!"

"I am like that," observed Bombiste, with regret. "But what wouldst thou, name of God! They come, they go: but at the end it is always thou."

The woman made no reply, and Papa Labesse, two metres away, laid his gnarled brown fingers on the handle of Bombiste's discarded scythe.

Bombiste capped his philosophy with a second long draught of wine, and then, taking a stupendous bite of bread and cheese, glanced slyly at his companion out of the corners of his eyes. She was gazing straight before her, her teeth nicking the edge of her lower lip.

"What hast thou?" mumbled the man, with his mouth full.

"She was very pretty," answered La Trompette, "and she loved thee, that garce. But thou art going to tell me that it is finished forever!--That never, never," she went on, clenching her hands, "wilt thou see her again! Else I plant thee, and thou canst earn thine own white pieces,--mackerel!"

Bombiste leaned over and placed his face beside hers.

"Is it not enough?" he said in his softest voice. "Voyons bien! What is she to me, this Marcelle? Fichtre! I planted her last week, thou knowest. B'en, quoi? Thou knowest the blue gown? It is that which sweeps the Boul' Roch' at present! But that is not for long. Perhaps the Morgue--more likely St. Lazare. Art thou not content?" And he pressed his cheek to the woman's and moved his head up and down slowly, caressing her.

Papa Labesse rose slowly to his feet, and stretched his lean arms to their full length. The sun winked for the fraction of a second on the downward swirling scythe, and then all was still, save for the dull thud, thudding of two round objects rolling down the uneven slope of sod. In a moment even this sound ceased.

Papa Labesse revolved slowly upon his heels, pausing as his blue eyes, wide and vacant, fell upon the distant walls of Sacré-Coeur, swimming, cream-white and high in air, between him and the sun. Then he pitched softly forward upon the grass.

In the Absence of Monsieur

MONSIEUR ARMAND MICHEL--seated before his newly installed Titian--was in the act of saying to himself that if its acquisition could not, with entire accuracy, be viewed as an unqualified bargain, it had been, at least, an indisputable stroke of diplomacy, when his complacent meditation was interrupted by the entrance of Arsène. It was the first time that Monsieur Michel had seen his new servant in his official capacity, and he was not ill-pleased. Arsène was in flawless evening dress, in marked contrast to the objectionably flamboyant costume in which, on the preceding evening, he had made application for the position of valet-maître d'hôtel, left vacant by the fall from grace of Monsieur Michel's former factotum. That costume had come near to being his undoing. The fastidious Armand had regarded with an offended eye the brilliant green cravat, the unspeakable checked suit, and the painfully pointed chrome-yellow shoes in which the applicant for his approval was arrayed, and more than once, in the course of conversation, was on the point of putting a peremptory end to the negotiations by a crushing comment on would-be servants who dressed like café chantant comedians. But the reference had outweighed the costume. Monsieur Michel did not remember ever to have read more unqualified commendation. Arsène Sigard had been for two years in the service of the Comte de Chambour, whose square pink marble hôtel on the avenue de Malakoff is accounted, in this degenerate age, one of the sights of Paris; and this of itself, was more than a little. The Comte did not keep his eyes in his pockets, by any manner of means, when it came to the affairs of his household, and apparently there was nothing too good for him to say about Arsène. Here, on pale blue note-paper, and surmounted by the de Chambour crest, it was set forth that the bearer was sober, honest, clean, willing, capable, quiet, intelligent, and respectful. _And_ discreet. When the Comte de Chambour gave his testimony on this last point it meant that you were getting the opinion of an expert. Monsieur Michel refolded the reference, tapped it three times upon the palm of his left hand, and engaged the bearer without further ado.

Now, as Arsène went quietly about the salon, drawing the curtains and clearing away the card table, which remained as mute witness to Monsieur Michel's ruling passion, he was the beau idéal of a gentleman's manservant,--unobtrusive in manner and movement, clean-shaven and clear-eyed, adapting himself without need of instruction to the details of his new surroundings. A less complacent person than Armand might have been aware that, while he was taking stock of Arsène, Arsène was taking stock, with equal particularity, of him. And there was an unpleasant slyness in his black eyes, a something akin to alertness in his thin nostrils, which moved like those of a rabbit, and seemed to accomplish more than their normal share of conveying to their owner's intelligence an impression of exterior things. Also, had Monsieur Michel but observed it, his new servant walked just a trifle _too_ softly, and his hands were just a trifle _too_ white and slender. Moreover, he had a habit of smiling to himself when his back was turned, which is an undesirable thing in anybody, and approaches the ominous in a valet-maître d'hôtel. But Monsieur Michel was far too much of an aristocrat to have any doubt of his power to overawe and impress his inferiors, or to see in the newcomer's excessive inconspicuity anything more than a commendable recognition of monsieur's commanding presence. So, when Arsène completed his work and had shut the door noiselessly behind him, his master rubbed his hands and said "Ter-rès bien!" in a low voice, this being his superlative expression of satisfaction. Had his glance been able to penetrate his salon door, it would have met, in the antichambre, with the astounding spectacle of his new servant in the act of tossing monsieur's silk hat into the air, and catching it, with extreme dexterity, on the bridge of his nose. Unfortunately, the other side of the door is something which, like the future and the bank-accounts of our debtors, it is not given us to see. So Monsieur Michel repeated his "Ter-rès bien!" and fell again to contemplating his Titian.

Yes, undoubtedly, it had been a great stroke of diplomacy. The young Marchese degli Abbraccioli was not conspicuous for his command of ready money, but his father had left him the finest private collection of paintings in Rome, and this, in consequence of chronic financial stress, was gradually passing from the walls of his palazzo in the via Cavour into the possession of an appreciative but none too extravagant government. It had been an inspiration, this proposal of Monsieur Michel's to settle his claim upon the Marchese for his overwhelming losses at baccarat by taking over one of the two Titians which flanked the chimney-piece in his study. The young Italian had assented eagerly, and had supplemented his acquiescence with a proposal to dispose of the pendant for somewhat more material remuneration than canceled reconnaissances. But Armand Michel had undertaken it before, this delicate task of getting objets d'art over the Italian frontier--yes, and been caught in the act, too, and forced to disgorge. For the moment, it was enough to charge himself with one picture, on the given conditions, without risking hard cash in the experiment. Later--well, later, one would see. And so, _a rivederla, mio caro marchese_.

Monsieur Michel fairly hugged himself as he thought of his success. Mon Dieu, quelle génie, that false bottom to his trunk! He had come safely through them all, the imbecile inspectors, and now his treasure hung fairly and finally upon his wall, smiling at him out of its tapestry surroundings. It was épatant, truly, and moreover, all there was of the most calé. Only one small cloud of regret hung upon the broad blue firmament of his satisfaction--the other picture! It had been so easy. He might as well have had two as one. And now, without doubt, the imbecile Marchese would sell the pendant to the imbecile government, and that would be the end of it so far as private purchase was concerned. Monsieur Michel rose from his chair with a gesture of impatience, and, drawing the curtain back from the window, looked out lugubriously upon the March cheerlessness of the place Vendôme. Little by little, a most seductive plan formed itself in his mind. After all, why not? A couple of weeks at Monte Carlo, a week at Sorrento, and a fortnight at Rome, in which to win the Titian from the Marchese degli Abbraccioli, by baccarat if possible, or by banknotes should fortune prove unkind. It was the simplest thing in the world, and he would avoid the remainder of the wet weather and be back for the opening of Longchamp. And Monsieur Michel rubbed his hands and said "Ter-rès bien!" again, with much emphasis.

When, a week later, Arsène was informed of Monsieur's intention to leave him in sole charge of his apartment for a time, he received the intelligence with the dignified composure of one who feels himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him. The cook was to have the vacation for which she had been clamoring, that she might display to her relatives in Lille the elaborate wardrobe which was the result of her savings during three years in Monsieur Michel's employ. Perfectly. And the apartment was to be aired and dusted daily, as if monsieur himself were there. And visitors to be told that monsieur was returning in a month. And letters to be made to follow monsieur, to Monte Carlo at first, and then to Rome. But perfectly; it was completely understood. Arsène bowed a number of times in succession, and outwardly was as calm as a tall, candid-faced clock, being wound up to run for a specified time independent of supervision. But beneath that smooth and carefully oiled expanse of jet-black hair a whole colony of the most fantastic ideas suddenly aroused themselves and began to elbow each other about in a veritable tumult.

Monsieur Michel took his departure in a whirl of confusion, losing a quantity of indispensable articles with exclamations of despair, and finding them the next moment with cries of satisfaction. Eugénie, the cook, compactly laced into a traveling dress of blue silk, stood at the doorway to bid her master good-by, and was run into at each instant by the cabman or the concierge or Monsieur Michel himself, each of whom covered, at top speed, several kilometres of stair and hallway, in the stupendous task of transferring a trunk, a valise, a hat-box, a shawl-strap, and an umbrella from the apartment to the carriage below. On the surface of this uproar, the presence of Arsène swam as serenely as a swan on a maelstrom. He accompanied his master to the gare de Lyon, and the last object which met the anxious eyes of Monsieur Michel, peering out from one of the first-class carriages of the departing express, was his new servant, standing upon the platform, as unmoved by the events of the morning as if monsieur had been passing from the dining room to take coffee in the salon instead of from Paris to take breakfast in Marseille. The sight of him was intensely soothing to the fevered spirit of Monsieur Michel, on whom the details of such a departure produced much the same effect as do cakes of soap when tossed into the mouth of an active geyser.

"He is calm," he said to himself, rubbing his hands. "He is very calm, and he will not lose his head while I am gone. Ter-rès bien!"

But the calm of Arsène was the calm of thin ice over swiftly rushing waters. As the polished buffers of the last carriage swung out of sight around the curve with a curiously furtive effect, like the eyes of an alarmed animal, slipping backward into its burrow, he clenched the fingers of his right hand, and slipping his thumb nail under the edge of his upper teeth, drew it forward with a sharp click. At the same time he said something to his vanished master in the second person singular, which is far from being the address of affection on the lips of a valet-maître d'hôtel.

Wheeling suddenly after this singular manifestation, Monsieur Sigard found himself the object of close and seemingly amused scrutiny on the part of an individual standing directly behind him. There was something so extremely disconcerting in this gentleman's unexpected proximity, and in his very evident enjoyment of the situation, that Arsène was upon the point of turning abruptly away, when the other addressed him, speaking the colloquial French of their class, with the slightest possible hint of foreign accent.

"Bah, vieux! Is it that I do not know what they are, the patrons? Oh, lalà!"

"Avec ça! There are some who have it, an astounding audacity!" said Arsène to the air over the stranger's head.

"Farceur!" replied the stranger, to the air over Arsène's. And then--

"There are two parrakeets that have need of plucking across the way," he added, reflectively.

"There are two empty sacks here to put the feathers in," answered Arsène, with alacrity; and ten minutes later, oblivious to the chill damp of the March morning, Monsieur Sigard and his new-found acquaintance, seated at a little table in front of a near-by wine-shop, were preparing in company the smoky-green mixture of absinthe and water which Paris slang has dubbed a parrakeet. On the part of Arsène the operation was performed with elaborate solicitude, and as he poured a tiny stream of water over the lump of sugar on the flat spoon balanced deftly across the glass, he held his head tipped sidewise and his left eye closed, in the manner of a contemplative fowl, and was oblivious to all but the delectable business of the moment.

But his companion, while apparently deeply engaged in the preparation of his own beverage, was far from being wholly preoccupied thereby. He was a man shorter by an inch or two than Monsieur Michel's maître d'hôtel, dressed in the most inconspicuous fashion, and with an air of avoiding any emphasis of voice or gesture which would be apt to attract more than casual attention to the circumstance of his existence. There was something about him vaguely suggestive of a chameleon, an instant harmonizing of his appearance and manner with any background whatsoever against which he chanced to find himself placed, and a curious clouding of his eyes when unexpectedly they were met by those of another, which lent him an immediate air of profound stupidity. No doubt his long practice in this habit of self-obliteration made him doubly appreciative of Arsène's little outburst of ill-feeling on the platform of the gare de Lyon. A man who would do that in public--well, he had much to learn!

Just now, however, this gentleman's eyes were very bright, though they had dwindled to mere slits; and he followed every movement of the unconscious Arsène with short, swift glances from beneath his drooping lids, as, bit by bit, the lumps of sugar melted under the steady drip of the trickling water, and the opalescent mixture mounted toward the brims. He knew but two varieties of absinthe drinker, this observant individual,--the one who progressed, under its influence, from cheerful candor to shrewdest insight into the motives of others, and most skilful evasion of their toils; the other whom, by easy stages, it led from obstinate reserve to the extreme of careless garrulity. At this moment he was on the alert for symptoms.

Arsène looked up suddenly as the last morsel of his sugar melted, and, lifting his glass, dipped it before the eyes of his new friend.

"To your health,--Monsieur--?" he said, in courteous interrogation.

"Fresque," said the other.

"Bon! And I, Monsieur Fresque, am Sigard, Arsène Sigard, maître d'hôtel, at your service, of the type who has just taken himself off, down there."

And he indicated the imposing pile of the gare de Lyon with his thumb, and then, closing his eyes, took a long sip of his absinthe, and replacing the glass upon the table, plunged his hands into his pockets and stared off gloomily toward the Seine.

"Poof!" he said, "but I am content that he is gone. What a filthiness, a rich man--what?"

"Not to be denied," agreed Monsieur Fresque. "There is not a foreign sou's worth of delicacy in the whole lot!"

"Mazette! I believe thee," answered the other, much pleased. Fresque's thin lips relaxed the veriest trifle at the familiarity, and he lit a cigarette and gazed vacantly into space.

"But what dost thou expect?" he observed, with calm philosophy.

It appeared that what Arsène expected was that honest folk should not work from seven to ten, in an ignoble box of a pantry, on boots, and silver, and what not, he demanded of him, name of a pipe! and dust, and sweep, and serve at table, good heaven! and practice a species of disgusting politeness to a type of old engraving like Monsieur Armand Michel. And all, oh, mon Dieu! for the crushing sum of twenty dollars a month, did he comprehend? while the animal in question was sowing his yellow buttons by fistfuls. Mazette! Evidently, he himself was not an eagle. He did not demand the Louvre to live in, for example, nor the existence lalala of Emile Loubet--what? but it was not amusing, he assured him, to be in the employ of the great revolting one in question. Ah, non!

"Eiffelesque!" succinctly commented Monsieur Fresque.

But, said Arsène, there was another side to the question, and he himself, it went without saying, was no waffle-iron, speaking of stupidity. He had not been present the day fools were distributed. Oh, far from that! In consequence, it was to become hump-backed with mirth, that part of his life passed behind the back of the example of an old Sophie whom he had the honor to serve. He had not forgotten how to juggle since he traveled with a band of mountebanks. And there were the patron's plates,--at one hundred francs the piece, good blood! Also he smoked the ancient cantaloupe's cigarettes, and as for the wines--tchutt! Arsène kissed his finger-tips and took a long sip of absinthe.

"He is gone for long?" inquired Fresque.

Ah, that! Who knew? Six weeks at least. And meanwhile might not a brave lad amuse himself in the empty apartment--eh? Oh, it would be life in a gondola, name of a name of a name!

The conversation was prolonged for an hour, Arsène growing more and more confidential under the seductive influence of his parrakeet, and his companion showing himself so heartily in accord with his spirit of license, that, by degrees, he captured completely the fancy of the volatile valet, and was permitted to take his departure only on the condition of presenting himself in the place Vendôme that evening for the purpose of smoking the cantaloupe's cigarettes and seeing Arsène juggle with the hundred-franc plates.

Monsieur Fresque was as good as his word. He put in an appearance promptly at eight o'clock, hung his hat and coat, at his host's invitation, on a Louis Quinze applique, and made himself comfortable in a chaise longue which--on the guarantee of Duveen--had once belonged to the Pompadour. Arsène outdid himself in juggling, and afterwards they cracked a bottle of Château Laffitte and drank it with great satisfaction out of Salviati glasses, topping off the entertainment with Russian kümmel and two of Monsieur Michel's cigars. Arsène, in his picturesque idiom, expressed himself as being tapped in the eye with his new friend to the extent of being able to quit him no longer, and forthwith Monsieur Hercule Fresque took up his quarters in the bedroom of the cantaloupe, his host established himself in Monsieur Michel's Empire guest chamber, and the "life in a gondola" went forward for five weeks to the supreme contentment of both parties.

Now it is a peculiarity of life in a gondola, as is known to all who have sampled its delights, that, while it lasts, consideration of past and future alike becomes dulled, and one loses all sense of responsibility in the lethal torpor of the present. So it was not until Arsène received a letter from Monsieur Michel, announcing his return, that he began to figure up the possible consequences of his experiment. They were, as he gloomily announced to Hercule, stupefying to the extent of dashing out one's brains against the wall. But one bottle of Château Laffitte remained, and none whatever of Russian kümmel. Moreover, the brocade of the chaise longue was hopelessly ruined by the boots of the conspirators, and the enthusiasm of Arsène's juggling had reduced by fifty per cent the set of Sèvres plates. What was to be done, bon Dieu, what _was_ to be done?

Monsieur Fresque, having carefully perused a letter with an Italian stamp, which had come by the evening mail, revolved the situation in his mind, slowly smoking the last of the cantaloupe's cigars, and glancing from time to time at the despondent figure of his host, with his eyes narrowed to mere slits. Had the fish been sufficiently played? He reeled in a foot or so of line by way of experiment.

"What, after all, is a situation?" he said. "Thou wilt be discharged, yes. But afterwards? Pah! thou wilt find another. And thou hast thy rigolade."

"Ah, that!" replied Arsène with a shrug. "I believe thee! But thinkest thou my old melon will find himself in the way of glueing the ribbon of the Légion on me for what I have done? I see myself from here, playing the harp on the bars of La Maz!"

"La vie à Mazas, c'est pas la vie en gondole," observed Hercule philosophically.

"Tu parles!"

Hercule appeared to take a sudden resolve. He swung his feet to the floor, and bending forward in the chaise longue, began to speak rapidly and with extreme earnestness.

"Voyons, donc, mon gars, thou hast been foolish, but one must not despair. What is done in France is never known in Italy. And here thou art surrounded by such treasures as the imbeciles of foreigners pay fortunes for, below there. Take what thou hast need of,--a trunk of the patron's, some silver, what thou canst lay hands on of gold and brass and enamel, whatever will not break--and get away before he returns. In Milan thou canst sell it all, and get another place. I have friends there, and thou shalt have letters. Voilà!"

"But one must have money," replied Arsène, brightening, nevertheless. "And that is lacking me."

Hercule seemed to ponder this objection deeply. Finally, with a sigh of resignation, he spoke again.

"B'en, voilà! Thou hast been my friend, is it not so? Hercule Fresque is not the man to be ungrateful. I am poor, and have need of my little savings--But, there! it is for a friend--pas? Let us say no more!" And he thrust a roll of banknotes into the hands of the stupefied Arsène.

The evening was spent in arranging the details of the flight. Arsène produced a serviceable trunk from the storeroom, and in this the two men placed a great variety of the treasures which Monsieur Michel had accumulated during twenty years of patient search and exorbitant purchase. Squares of priceless tapestry, jeweled watches and snuff boxes, figurines of old Sèvres, ivories cunningly carved and yellow with age, madonnas of box-wood, and wax, and ebony,--all were carefully wrapped in newspapers and stowed away; and to these Arsène added a dozen of his master's shirts, two suits of clothes, and a box of cigarettes. But when all the available material had been appropriated there yet remained an empty space below the tray. It would never do to have the treasures knocking about on the way. Arsène proposed a blanket--or, better yet, one of Monsieur Michel's overcoats. But Hercule, after rearranging the trunk so as to make the empty space of different form, turned suddenly to his companion, who was picking nervously at his fingers and watching the so fruitful source of suggestion with a pathetic air of entreaty, and clapped him gleefully upon the chest.

"A painting!" he exclaimed.

Complete demoralization seemed to have taken possession of Arsène. He was very pale, and his eyes constantly sought the salon door as if he expected the object of his ingenious epithets to burst in at any moment, with the prefect and all his legions at his heels.

"A painting?" he repeated blankly; "but how, a painting?"

But Monsieur Fresque had already mounted nimbly on a chair and lifted the cherished Titian of Monsieur Michel from its place against the tapestry. There was no further need of persuasion. The moment had come for action; and, seizing a hammer, he began to wrench off the frame, talking rapidly between short gasps of exertion.

"But certainly, a painting. This one is small--ugh!--but who can say how valuable? They sell readily down there, these black daubs. Ah! By rolling, it will fill the empty space, seest thou, and later it may mean a thousand francs. One does not do things by--umph!--by halves in such a case. Sacred nails! One would say they had been driven in for eternity! Oof! Thou art fortunate to have me to advise thee, great imbecile. Mayhap this is worth all the rest. Pig of a frame, va! It is of iron. Ugh! He will be furious, thy patron, but what of that? In Italy thou wilt hear no more of it. Still one nail. Come away, then, type of a cow! Enfin!"

With one final effort he tore off the last fragment of frame, peeled the canvas from the back-board, and, rolling it carefully, tucked it into the empty space, replaced the tray, and closed the trunk with a snap.

"Voilà!" he said, straightening himself and turning a red but triumphant face to the astounded maître d'hôtel.

"Now for the letters," he added, seating himself at Monsieur Michel's desk and beginning to scribble busily. "Do thou go for a cab, and at a gallop. It has struck half past ten and the Bâle rapide leaves the gare de l'Est at midnight."

Hardly had the door of the apartment closed upon the demoralized valet when Monsieur Fresque hastily shoved to one side the note he had begun, and, writing a sentence or two upon another slip of paper, wrapped the latter about a two-sou piece, and went quietly to the salon window. Opening this cautiously, he found a fine rain falling outside, and the eastern half of the square deserted save for two figures,--one the flying form of Arsène, cutting across a corner into the rue Castiglione in search of a cab, and the other that of a man muffled in a heavy overcoat and with a slouch hat pulled well over his eyes, who was lounging against the railing of the Column, and who, as Fresque opened the window, shook himself into activity and stepped nimbly out across the wide driveway. Hercule placed the paper containing the two-sou piece upon the window sill and with a sharp flick of his forefinger sent it spinning down into the square. The man in the slouch hat stooped for an instant in passing the spot where it lay, and Monsieur Fresque, softly closing the window, stretched his arms upward into a semblance of a gigantic letter Y, and indulged in a prodigious yawn.

"Ça y est!" said he.

Papa Briguette had long since climbed into his high bedstead, in the loge de concierge, when, for the second time in fifteen minutes, he was aroused by the voice of Arsène calling, "Cordon, s'il vous plaît!" in the main hallway, and, reaching from under his feather coverlid, pressed the bulb which unlocked the street-door.

"Quel coureur, que ce gars!" grumbled the worthy man to his fat spouse, snoring complacently at his side. "I deceive myself if, when Monsieur Michel returns, thou dost not hear a different story."

"Awr-r-r-r!" replied Maman Briguette.

On the way to the gare de l'Est Arsène recovered the better part of his lost composure, and listened with something akin to cheerfulness to the optimistic prognostications of his companion. By the time the precious trunk was registered and he had secured his seat in a second-class compartment of the Bâle rapide, he was once more in high feather and profuse in expressions of gratitude, as he smoked a farewell cigarette with Fresque while waiting for the train to start.

"Thou canst believe me, mon vieux," he protested. "It is not a little thing that thou hast done, name of a name. Ah, non! It was the act of a brave comrade, that I assure thee. Et voyons! When I have sold the effects down there, thou shalt have back thy little paper mattress, word of honor! Yes, and more--thy share of the gain, mon zig!"

He grasped the other's hand fervently as a passing guard threw them a curt "En voiture, messieurs!" and seemed on the point of kissing him farewell. There was some confusion attendant upon his entering the compartment, owing to the excessive haste of a man muffled in a heavy overcoat and with a slouch hat pulled well over his eyes, who arrived at the last moment and persisted in scrambling in, at the very instant chosen by Monsieur Sigard. The latter immediately reappeared at the window, and, as the train began to move, shouted a few final acknowledgments at his benefactor.

"B'en, au r'voir, vieux! And I will write thee from below there, thou knowest. A thousand thanks. Fear not for thy blue paper--what? Thou shalt have it back, sou for sou, name of a name!"

He was almost out of hearing now, his face a cream-colored splotch against the deep maroon of the railway carriage, and, drawing out a gaudy handkerchief, he waved it several times in token of farewell.

"I shall never forget thee, never!" he cried, as a kind of afterthought and valedictory in one.

"Ah, ça!" said Monsieur Fresque to himself, as Arsène's face went out of sight, "_that_ I well believe!"

Yet, so inconstant is man, the promised letter from "below there" never reached him. Another did, however, and it was this which he might have been observed reading to a friend, with every evidence of the liveliest satisfaction, one week later, at a rear table before the Taverne Royale. One would hardly have recognized the plainly, almost shabbily dressed comrade of Arsène, with his retiring manners and his furtive eyes, in this extremely prosperous individual, in polished top hat, white waistcoat and gaiters, and gloves of lemon yellow. His companion was equally imposing in appearance, and it was apparent that he derived as much amusement from listening to Monsieur Fresque's epistle as did the latter from reading it aloud, which he did with the most elaborate emphasis, calling the other's attention to certain sentences by tapping him lightly upon the arm and repeating them more slowly.

The letter was in Italian, and ran as follows:--

MILAN, _April 20, 1901_.

MY GOOD ERCOLE,--I am leaving here today for Rome, where the case of
the government against the Marchese degli Abbraccioli is to come on
next week, but before I do so I must write you of the last act in
the little comedy of Arsène Sigard. I never lost sight of him from
the moment we left Paris, and when he found I was also on my way to
Italy, he became confidential, and, in exchange for certain
information which I was able to give him about Milan, etc., told me
a long story about himself and his affairs, which I found none the
less amusing for knowing it to be a tissue of lies. The time passed
readily enough, but I was relieved when we started over the St.
Gothard, because I knew then that the game was as good as played.
We arrived at Chiasso on time (two o'clock) and I found Sassevero on
the platform when I jumped out. He had come on from Rome the night
before, and was in a positive panic because Palmi, who had been
watching old Michel there, had lost him somehow and nobody knew
where he'd gone. He might have come through on any train, of course,
and Sassevero didn't even know him by sight.

Naturally, our little business with Sigard was soon done. Cagliacci
is still chief of customs at Chiasso, and he simply confiscated the
trunk and everything in it, though, of course, the government wasn't
after anything but the picture. There were two hours of argument
over the disposition of Sigard, but it seemed best to let him go and
nothing further said, which he was only too glad to do. The Old Man
is shy of diplomatic complications, it appears, and he had told
Sassevero to frighten the chap thoroughly and then let him slip off.

Here comes in the most remarkable part of all. Just as Sigard was
marching out of the room, in came the Lucerne express, and our
friend walks almost into the arms of an oldish gentleman who had
jumped out of a carriage and was hurrying into the customs room.

"Bon Dieu!" said this individual, "what does _this_ mean?"

"What does what mean?" put in Sassevero like a flash, and the other
was so taken by surprise that, before he had time to think what he
was saying, the secret was out.

"That's my valet de chambre!" he said.

"Really?" said Sassevero. "Bravo! Then you're the gentleman with the
Marchese degli Abbraccioli's second Titian in the false bottom of
his trunk!"

Could anything have been more exquisite? The old chap is out some
hundred thousand lire on the transaction, because, of course,
Cagliacci confiscated it like the other. It was a sight to
remember,--the two pictures side by side in his room, and Michel and
Sigard cursing each other above them! We all went on to Milan by the
next train, except Sigard, who did the prudent thing on the
appearance of his padrone, and disappeared, but Michel's appeal to
the French consulate was of no effect. The consul told him flat that
he was going directly against the law in trying to get old works of
art over the frontier, and that he couldn't plead ignorance after
the detail of the false bottom.

Sassevero says the Old Man is immensely pleased with the way you
handled your end of the affair. The funny part of it is that Sigard
apparently hadn't the most remote suspicion of your being in any way
involved in his catastrophe.

Your most devoted,

CAVALETTO.

Little Tapin

HIS name was Jean-Marie-Michel Jumière, and the first eighteen years of his life were spent near the little Breton village of Plougastel. They were years of which each was, in every respect, like that which went before, and, in every respect, like that which followed after: years, that is to say, devoid of incident, beyond the annual pardon, when the peasants came from far and near to the quaint little church, to offer their prayers at the cemetery Calvary, and display their holiday costumes, and make love, and exchange gossip on the turf round about. It is a land of wide and wind-swept hillsides, this, imbued with the strange melancholy of a wild and merciless sea, and wherein there are no barriers of convention or artificiality between earth and sky, man and his Maker; but Jean-Marie loved it for its very bleakness. From the doorway of his mother's cottage, standing, primly white, in the midst of great rocks and strawberry fields, with its thatched roof drawn down, like a hood, about its ears, as if in protection against the western gales, he could look out across the broad harbor of Brest to the Goulet, the gateway to that great Atlantic whose mighty voice came to his ears in stormy weather, muttering against the barrier of the shore. And this voice of the sea spoke to Jean-Marie of many things, but, most of all, of the navies of France, of the mighty battleships which went out from Brest to unimagined lands, far distant, China, America, and the southern islands, whence comrades, older than himself, brought back curious treasures, coral, and shells, and coins, and even parrots, to surprise the good people of Plougastel. He looked at them enviously, as they gathered about the door of Père Yvetot's wine-shop, when they were home on leave, and spun sailor yarns for his delighted ears. How wonderful they were, these men who had seen the world,--Toulon, and Marseille, and Tonkin,--how wonderful, with their wide, flapping trousers, and their jaunty caps, with a white strap and a red pompon, and their throats and breasts, showing ruddy bronze at the necks of their shirts!

At such times Jean-Marie would join timidly in the talk, and, perhaps, speak of the time when he, too, should be marin français, and see the world. And the big Breton sailors would laugh good-naturedly, and slap him on the shoulder, and say: "Tiens! And how then shall the cruisers find their way into Brest harbor, when the little phare is gone?" For it was a famous joke in Plougastel to pretend that Jean-Marie, with his flaming red hair, was a lighthouse, which could be seen through the Goulet, far, far out at sea.

But Jean-Marie only smiled quietly in reply, for he knew that his day would come. At night, the west wind, sweeping in from the Atlantic, and rattling his little casement, seemed to be calling him, and it was a fancy of his to answer its summons in a whisper, turning his face toward the window.

"All in good time, my friend. All in good time!"

Again, when he was working in the strawberry fields, he would strain his eyes to catch the outline of some big green battleship, anchored off Brest, or, during one of his rare visits to the town, lean upon the railing of the pont tournant, to watch the sailors and marines moving about the barracks and magazines on the quais of the porte militaire. All in good time, my friends; all in good time!

Only, there were two to whom one did not speak of these things,--the Little Mother, and Rosalie Vivieu. Already the sea had taken three from Madame Jumière--Baptiste, her husband, and Philippe and Yves, the older boys, who went out together, with the fishing fleet, seven years before, in the staunch little smack La Belle Fortune. She had been cheerful, even merry, during the long weeks of waiting for the fleet's return, and, when it came in one evening, with news of La Belle Fortune cut down in the fog by a North Cape German Lloyd, and all hands lost, she had taken the news as only a Breton woman can. Jean-Marie was but twelve at the time, but there is an intuition, beyond all reckoning in years, in the heart of a fisher's son, and never should he forget how the Little Mother had caught him to her heart that night, at the doorway of their cottage, crying, "Holy Saviour! Holy Saviour!" with her patient blue eyes upturned to the cold, grey sky of Finistère! As for Rosalie, Jean-Marie could not remember when they two had not been sweethearts, since the day when, as a round-eyed boy of six, he had watched Madame Vivieu crowding morsels of blessed bread into her baby mouth at the pardon of Plougastel, since all the world knows that in such manner only can backwardness of speech be cured. Rosalie was sixteen now, as round, and pink, and sweet as one of her own late peaches, and she had promised to marry Jean-Marie some day. For the time being, he was allowed to kiss her only on the great occasion of the pardon, but that was once more each year than any other gars in Plougastel could do, so Jean-Marie was content. No, evidently, to these two there must be no mention of his dreamings of the wide and wonderful sea, of the summons of the impatient western wind, of those long reveries upon the pont tournant.

So Jean-Marie hugged his visions to his heart for another year, working in the strawberry fields, gazing out with longing eyes toward the warships in the harbor, and whispering, when the fingers of the wind tapped upon his little casement: "All in good time, my friend. All in good time!"

And his day came at last, as he had known it would. But with what a difference! For there were many for the navy that spring. Plougastel had nine, and Daoulas fifteen ready, and Hanvec seven, and Crozon twenty-one, and from Landerneau, and Châteaulin, and Lambezellec, and le Folgoet came fifty more, and from Brest itself, a hundred; and all of these, with few exceptions, were great, broad-shouldered lads, strong of arm and deep of chest, and so the few who were slender and fragile, like Jean-Marie, were assigned to the infantry, and sent, as is the custom, far from Finistère, because, says the code, change of scene prevents homesickness, and what the code says must, of course, be true.

When Madame Jumière heard this she smiled as she was seldom known to smile. The Holy Virgin, then, had listened to her prayers. The gars was to be a piou-piou instead of a col bleu, after all! The great sea should not rob her again, as it had robbed her in the time. It was very well, oh, grace au saint Sauveur, it was very well! And, all that night, the Little Mother prayed, and watched a tiny taper, flickering before her porcelain image of Notre Dame de la Recouvrance, while Jean-Marie tossed and turned upon his little garret bed, and made no reply, even in a whisper, to the west wind, rattling his casement with insistent fingers.

But it was all far worse than he had pictured it to himself, even in those first few hours of disappointment and despair. The last Sunday afternoon which he and Rosalie passed, hand in hand, seated by the Calvary in Plougastel cemetery, striving dumbly to realize that they should see each other no more for three long years; the following morning, chill and bleak for that time of year, when he and the Little Mother, standing on the platform of the station at Brest, could barely see each others' faces, for the sea-fog and their own hot tears; the shouts and laughter and noisy farewells of the classe, crowding out of the windows of their third-class carriages; and, finally, the interminable journey to Paris,--all of these were to Jean-Marie like the successive stages of a feverish, uneasy dream. He knew none of the noisy Breton peasant lads about him, but sat by himself in the centre of the compartment, too far from either window to catch more than fleeting glimpses of the fog-wrapped landscape through which the train crept at thirty kilometres the hour. At long intervals, they stopped in great stations, of which little Jean-Marie remembered to have heard,--Morlaix, St. Brieuc, Rennes, and Laval, where the recruits bought cakes and bottles of cheap wine, and joked with white-capped peasant women on the platforms; and twice during the long night he was roused from a fitful, troubled sleep to a consciousness of raucous voices crying "Le Mans!" and "Chartres!" and gasped in sudden terror--before he could remember where he was--at the faces of his slumbering companions, ghastly and distorted in the wretched light of the compartment lamp. So, as the dawn was breaking over Paris, they came into the gare Montparnasse, and, too drowsy to realize what was demanded of them, were herded together by the drill sergeants in charge, and marched away across the city to the barracks of La Pépinière.

The weeks that followed were to Jean-Marie hideous beyond any means of expression. From the first he had been assigned to the drum-corps, and spent hours daily, under command of a corporal expert in the art, laboriously learning double rolls and ruffles in the fosse of the fortifications. For they are not in the way of enduring martyrdom, the Parisians, and even while they cry "Vive l'armée!" with their hats off, and their eyes blazing, the drummers and buglers are sent out of hearing, to practice the music that later, when the regiments parade, will stir the patriotism of the throng.

But this part of his new life was no hardship to Jean-Marie, or Little Tapin, as his comrades soon learned to call him, because he was the smallest drummer in the corps. On the contrary, it was something to be in the open air, even though that air was tainted with sluggish smoke from the factory chimneys of Levallois-Perret, instead of being swept and refreshed by the west wind from beyond the Goulet. And he was very earnest, very anxious to please, was Little Tapin. First of all the new drummers, he learned the intricacies of the roll, and so diligently did he improve the hours of practice that he was first, as well, to be regularly assigned to a place in the regimental band. No, this was no hardship. What cramped and crushed his kindly little heart, what clouded his queer, quizzical eyes, was nothing less than Paris, beautiful, careless Paris, that laughed, and danced, and sang about him, and had never a thought for Little Tapin, with his funny, freckled face, and his ill-fitting uniform of red and blue, and his coarse boots, and his ineradicable Breton stare.

In Plougastel he had been wont to greet and to be greeted, to hear cheery words from those who passed him on the wide, white roads. He was part of it all, one who was called by his honest name, instead of by a ridiculous sobriquet, and who had his share in all that went forward, from the strawberry harvest to the procession of the pardon. And if all this was but neighborly interest, at least there were two to whom Jean-Marie meant more, and who meant more to him.

But Paris,--Paris, with her throngs of strange faces hurrying past, her brilliantly lighted boulevards, her crowded cafés, her swirl of traffic along avenues that one crossed only at peril of one's life,--he was lost amid her clamor and confusion as utterly as a bubble in a whirlpool! The bitterest hours of his new life were those of his leave, in which, with a band of his fellows, he went out of the great green gates of the caserne to seek amusement. Amusement! They soon lost Little Tapin, the others, for he was one who did not drink, and who walked straight on when they turned to speak to passing grisettes, who clung to each others' arms, and looked back, laughing at the sallies of the piou-pious. He was not bon camarade. He seemed to disapprove. So, presently, while he was staring into a shop window, they would slip down a side street, or into a tiny café, and Little Tapin would find himself alone in the great city which he dreaded.

He came to spending long hours of his leave in the galleries of the Louvre, hastening past row upon row of nude statues with startled eyes, or making his way wearily from picture to picture of the old Dutch masters, striving, striving to understand. Then, footsore and heartsick, he would creep out upon the pont du Carrousel, and stand for half an afternoon, with his elbows on the railing. Behind him, the human tide swung back and forward from bank to bank, the big omnibuses making the bridge throb and sway under his feet. It was good, that, like the rise and fall of his little boat on the swells of the bras de Landerneau, when he rowed up with a comrade to fish at the mouth of the Elorn. And there was always the Seine, whirling, brown and angry, under the arches of the pont Royal beyond, on its way to the sea, where were the great, green battleships. Little Tapin strained his eyes in an attempt to follow the river's long sweep to the left, toward the distant towers of the Trocadéro, and then pictured to himself how it would go on and on, out into the good, green country, past hillsides crowded with vineyards, and broad, flat meadows, where the poplars stood, aligned like soldiers, against the sky, until it broadened toward its end, running swifter and more joyously, for now the wind had met it and was crying, "Come! Come! The Sea! The Sea!" as it was used to cry, rattling the casement of his little room at Plougastel. Then two great tears ran slowly down his freckled cheeks, and dropped, unnoted, into the flying river, wherein so many fall. Ah, what a baby he was, to be sure, Little Tapin!

So three months went by, and then one morning the news ran through La Pépinière that the regiment was going to move. There is no telling how such tidings get abroad, for the pawns are not supposed to know what part in the game they are to play. A loose-tongued lieutenant, perhaps, and a sharp-eared ordonnance, or a word between two commandants overheard by the sentry in his box at the gates of the caserne. Whatever the source of information, certain it was that, six hours after the colonel of the 107th of the line had received his orders, his newest recruit could have told you as much of them as was known to General de Galliffet himself, in his office on the boulevard St. Germain.

A more than usually friendly comrade confided the news to Little Tapin, exulting. The regiment was to move--in three days, name of God! Epatant--what? And, what was more, they were to go to the south, to Grenoble, whence one saw the Alpes Maritimes, with snow upon them--snow upon them, did Tapin comprehend?--and always! No matter whether it was a Tuesday, or a Friday,--yes, or even a Sunday! There was _always_ snow!

No, Little Tapin could hardly comprehend. He pondered dully upon this new development of his fate all that afternoon, and then, suddenly, while he was beating the staccato roll of the retraite in the court of the caserne that night, he understood! Why, it was to go further away, this,--further away from Plougastel, and the Little Mother, and Rosalie, to be stationed in God knew what great town, crueller, more crowded than even Paris herself!

All that night Little Tapin lay staring at the ceiling of the big dortoir, while the comrades breathed heavily around him. And, little by little, the spirit of rebellion roused and stirred in his simple Breton heart. For he hated it all,--this army, this dreary, rigid routine, this contemptuous comment of trim, sneering young lieutenants, with waxed mustaches, and baggy red riding breeches, and immaculately varnished boots. He hated his own uniform, which another tapin had worn before him, and which, in consequence, had never even had the charm of freshness. He hated the bugles, and the drums,--yes, and, more than all, the tricolor, the flag of the great, cruel Republic which had cooped him up in these desolate barracks of La Pépinière, instead of sending him with other Bretons out to the arms of the blue sea! And, when gray morning crept through the windows of the dortoir, there lay upon the pallet of Little Tapin a deserter, in spirit, at least, from the 107th of the line!

That day, for the third time since joining the regiment, Little Tapin was detailed as drummer to the guard at the Palais du Louvre. He knew what _that_ meant,--a long, insufferably tiresome day, with nothing to do save to idle about a doorway of the palace, opposite the place du Palais Royal, watching the throng of shoppers scurrying to and fro, and passing in and out of the big magasins du Louvre. It was only as sunset approached that the drummer of the guard detail had any duty to perform. Then he marched, all alone, with his drum slung on his hip, across the place du Carrousel, and down the wide central promenade of the Tuileries gardens, to the circular basin at their western end, where, on pleasant afternoons, the little Parisians--and some, too, of larger growth--manoeuvred their miniature yachts, to the extreme vexation of the sluggish gold-fish. There, standing motionless, like a sketch by Edouard Detaille, he watched the sun creep lower, lower, behind the arc de l'Etoile, until it went out of sight, and then, turning, he marched back, drumming sturdily, to warn all who lingered in the gardens that the gates were about to close.