 Chapter 5 of The Joyous Adventures of Aristide de Pujol by William John Locke Chapter 5. The Adventure of the Pig's Head Once upon a time, Aristide de Pujol found himself standing outside his Paris residence, No. 213 Biss Rue Saint-Ré, without a penny in the world. His last zoo had gone to Madame Bidou, who kept a small greengrocer shop at No. 213 Biss, and rented a ridiculously small back room for a ridiculously small weekly sum to Aristide whenever he honored the French capital with his presence. During his absence, she forwarded him such letters as might arrive for him, and as this was his only permanent address, and as he let Madame Bidou know his whereabouts only at vague intervals of time, the transaction of business with Aristide de Pujol, agent No. 213 Biss Rue Saint-Ré Paris, by correspondence, was peculiarly difficult. He had made Madame Bidou's acquaintance in the dim pass, and he had made it in his usual direct and electric manner. Happening to walk down the Rue Saint-Ré, he had come upon tragedy. Madame Bidou, a fat, red-face, tearful of eye, and strident of voice, held in her arms a little mongrel dog, her own precious possession, which had been run over in the street, and the two of them filled the air with wailings and vociferation. Aristide uncovered his head, as though he were about to address the Duchess, and smiled at her engagingly. Madame said he, I perceive that your little dog has a broken leg. As I know all about dogs, I will, with your permission, set the limb, put it into splints, and guarantee a perfect cure. Needless to say, I make no charge for my services. Snatching the dog from the arms of a fascinated woman, he darted in his dragonfly fashion into the shop, gave a hundred orders to a stupefied assistant, and took short a story which Aristide told me, with great wealth of detail, mended the precious dog, and gained Madame Bidou's eternal gratitude. For Madame Bidou, the world held no more remarkable man than Aristide Pujol, and for Aristide the world held no more devoted friend than Madame Bidou. Many a succulent meal at the widow's expense, never more enjoyable than in summertime, when she sat a little iron table and a couple of iron chairs on the pavement outside the shop, had saved him from starvation, and many a giga sent from London or Marseilles or other such remote latitudes filled her heart with pride. Since my acquaintance with Aristide, I myself have called on this excellent woman, and I hope I have won her esteem, though I have never had the honour of eating pig strotters and a choux grotte with her on the pavement of the ruse and honoree. It is an honour from which, being an unassuming man, I shrink. Unfortunately Madame Bidou has nothing further to do with the story I am about to relate, save in one respect. There came a day, it was a bleak day in November, when Madame Bidou's temporary financial difficulties happened to coincide with Aristides. To him, unsuspicious of coincidence, she confided her troubles. He emptied the meager contents of his purse into her hand. Madame Bidou said he, with a flourish and the air of a prince, why didn't you tell me before, and without waiting for her blessing he went out penniless into the street. Aristide was never happier than when he had not a penny-piece in the world. He believed I fancy in a dim sort of way in God and the Virgin and Holy Water and the Pope, but the faith that thrilled him to exaltation was his faith in the inevitable happening of the unexpected. He marched to meet it with the throbbing pulses of a soldier rushing to victory or a saint to martyrdom. He walked up the rue Saint-Honoré, the rue de la Paix, along the grand boulevard, smiling on a world which teamed with unexpectednesses until he reached a café on the boulevard des bons-filles de Calvère. Here he was arrested by fate in the form of a battered man in black, who, springing from the solitary frostiness of the terrace, threw his arms about him and kissed him on both cheeks. Mais c'est toi, Poujol! C'est toi, Roulard! Roulard dragged Aristide to his frosty table and ordered drinks. Roulard had played the trumpet in the regimental band in which Aristide had played the kettle-drum. During their military service they had been inseparables. Since those happy and ear-splitting days they had not met, they looked at each other and laughed and thumped each other's shoulders. And what are you doing? asked Aristide after the first explosions of astonishment and reminiscence. A cloud overspread the battered man's features. He had a wife and five children and played in theatre orchestras. At the present time he was trombone in the tournée Goulogne, a touring opera company. It was not gay for a sensitive artist like him, and the trombone gave one a thirst which it took half a week's salary to satisfy. Mais enfin, que vertu! It was life, a dog's life, but life was like that. Aristide, he supposed, was making a fortune. Aristide threw back his head and laughed at the exquisite humor of the hypothesis and gaily disclosed his macabre-ish situation. Roulard sat for a moment thoughtful and silent. Presently a ray of inspiration dispelled the cloud from the features of the battered man. Tien Monvia said he, I have an idea. It was an idea worthy of Aristide's consideration. The drum of the tournée Goulogne had been dismissed for drunkenness. The vacancy had not been filled. Various exucatants who had drummed on approval, this being an outweak of the tour, had driven the chef d'orchestre to the verge of homicidal mania. Why should not Aristide, past master in drumming, find an honorable position in the orchestra of the tournée Goulogne? Aristide's eyes sparkled. His fingers itched for the drumsticks he started to his feet. Mon vieux Roulard, he cried, you have saved my life. More than that, you have resuscitated an artist. Yes, an artist. Sacré nom de Dieu. Take me to the chef d'orchestre. So Roulard, when the hour of rehearsal drew nigh, conducted Aristide to the murky recesses of a dirty little theater in the Batignol, where Aristide performed such prodigies of repercussion that he was forthwith engaged to play the drum, the kettle drum, the triangle, the cymbals, the castanets, and the tambourine in the orchestra of the tournée Goulogne at the dazzling salarie of 30 francs a week. To tell how Aristide drummed and cymbal to the progress of Le Huguenot, Carmen, La Juive, La Fille de Madame Angeau, and La Lézière through France would mean the rewriting of a capitaine fracas. To hear the creature talk about it makes my mouth as a brick oven and my flesh as that of a goose. He was the Adonis, the Apollo, the Don Juan, the irresistible of the tournée. Fled truculent bass and haughty tenor before him, from diva to mastatio de contralto in the chorus, all the ladies breathlessly watched for the fall of his anchorchief. He was recognized in fact as a devil of a fellow. But in spite of these triumphs, the manipulation of the drum, kettle drum, triangle, cymbals, castanets and tambourine, which at first had given him intense and childish delight, at last became invested with a mechanical monotony that almost drove him mad. All day long the thought of the ill-lit corner on the extreme right of the orchestra, garnished with the accursed instruments of noise to which duty would compel him at eight o'clock in the evening, hung over him like a hideous doom. Sweet singers of the female sex were powerless to console. He passed them by, and haughty tenor and swaggering bazo again took heart of grace. Mais mon Dieu sait le métier, expatulated Roulade. Salut le métier, cried Aristite, who was as much fitted for the merciless routine of a theater orchestra as a quaga for the shafts of an omnibus, a beast of a trade. One is no longer a man, one is just an automatic system of fog signals. In this depraved state of mind he arrived at Perpignan, where that befell him, which I am about to relate. Now Perpignan is the last town of France on the Gulf of Lyon, a few miles from the Spanish border. From it you can see the great white monster of Le Canijoux, the pride of the eastern Pyrenees, far, far away, blocking up the valley of the Tête, which flows sluggishly past the little town. The quai Sardicarno, is there a provincial town in France which has not a something Sardicarno in it, is on the left back of the Tête. At one end is the modern Plaza Rago, at the other, Le Castillier, a round castellated red brick fortress with curiously long and deep machiolcalations of the 14th century, with some modern additions of Louis XI, who also built the adjoining porte Notre-Dame, which gives access to the city. Between the Castillier and the Plaza Rago, the quai Sardicarno is the site of the prefecture, the Grand Hotel, various villas, and other resorts of the aristocracy. Any little street off it will lead you into the seething center of Apapignon Life, the Place de la Loge, which is a great block of old buildings surrounded on its four sides by narrow streets of shops, cafes, private houses, all with balconies and jealousies, all cramped, crumbling, Spanish picturesque. The oldest of this conglomerate block is a corner building, the Loge de Mer, a 13th-century palace, the cloth exchange in the glorious days when Perpignan was of seaport and its merchant princes traded with sultans and doges, and such like magnificos of the Mediterranean. But nowadays its glory has departed. Below the great Gothic windows spreads the awning of a café, which takes up all the ground floor. Hugging it tight is the Marie, and hugging that, the Hotel de Villa, hithered as every soul in the place at some hour or other of the day, inevitably gravitate. Lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, merchants, lovers, soldiers, market women, loafers, horses, dogs, wagons, all crowd in a noisy medley the narrow cobble paved streets around the Loge. Of course there are other streets, torturous, odorous, and cool, intersecting the old town. And there are various open spaces, one of which is the broad market square on one side, flanked by the Diatra Municipale. From the theatre, Aristide Pujol issued one morning after rehearsal, and leaving his colleagues, including the ever-thirsty Roulade, to refresh themselves at a humble café hard-buy, went forth in search of distraction. He idled about the Place de la Loge, past the time of day with a café waiter, until the latter, with a disconcerting Voila, Voila darted off to attend to a customer, and then scrolled through the port Notre-Dame on to the quai Sadi Carnot. There a familiar sound met his ears, the roll of a drum, followed by an incantation in a quavering high-pitched voice. It was the town crier, with whom, as with a brother artist, he had picked acquaintance the day before. They met by the parapet of the quai, just as Père Bracasa had come to the end of his incantation. The old man, grizzled, tanned, and seemed, lent weakly against the parapet. How goes a Père Bracasa? Alas, mon pont, monsieur, it goes from bad to worse, sighed the old man. I am at the end of my strength. My voice has gone, and the accursed rheumatism in my shoulder gives me atrocious pain whenever I beat the drum. How much more of your round have you to go? asked Aristide. I have only just begun, said to Père Bracasa. The southern sun, shone from a cloudless sky. A light, keen wind, blowing from the distant snow-clad carijou, set the blood tingling. A lunatic idea flashed throughout Aristide's mind. He whipped the drum-strap over the old man's head. Père Bracasa, said he, you are suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever, and corns, and you must go home to bed. I will finish your round for you. Listen, and he beat such a tattoo as Père Bracasa had never accomplished in his life. Where are your words? The old man, too weary to resist, and fascinated by Aristide's laughing eyes, handed him a dirty piece of paper. Aristide read, played a magnificent role, and proclaimed in a clarion voice that a gold bracelet having been lost on Sunday afternoon in the Avenue des Platonnes, whoever would deposit it at the Marie would receive a reward. That's all, he inquired. That's all, said Père Bracasa. I live in the Rue Petit de la Riale, number four, and you will bring me back the drum when you have finished. Aristide darted off like a dragonfly in the sunshine, as happy as a child with a new toy. Here he could play the drum to his heart's content with no score or conductor's baton to worry him. He was also the one and only personage in the drama, concentrating on himself the attention of the audience. He pityed poor Roulag, who could never have such an opportunity with his trombone. The effect of his drumming before the Café de la Loge was electric. Shopkeepers ran out of their shops, housewives craned over their balconies, to listen to him. By the time he had threaded the busy strip of the town, and emerged onto the Plaza Rago, he had collected an admiring train of urchins. On the Plaza Rago he halted on the fringe of a crowd surrounding a cheap jack, whose vociferations he drowned in a roll of thunder. He drummed and drummed till he became the center of the throng. Then he proclaimed the bracelet. He had not enjoyed himself so much since he left Paris. He was striding away, merry-eyed and happy, followed by his satellites, when a prosperous-looking gentleman with a very red face, a prosperous roll of fat above the back of his collar, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole, descending the steps of the great glass-covered Café commanding the plaza, hurried up and laid his finger on his arm. Pardon, my friend, said he. What are you doing there? You shall hear, Monsieur, replied Aristide, clutching the drumsticks, for the love of heaven, cried the other hastily, interrupting, tell me what you are doing. I am crying the loss of a bracelet, Monsieur. But who are you? I am Aristide Bougior, and I play the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, cymbals, castanets, and tambourine in the orchestra of the tournée Gouland. And now, in my turn, may I ask to whom I have the honor of speaking? I am the mayor of Perpignan. Aristide raced his hat politely. I hope to have the pleasure, said he, of Monsieur Le Maire's better acquaintance. The mayor, attracted by the rascals guileless mockery, laughed. You will, my friend, if you go on playing that drum. You are not the town crier. Aristide explained. Pierre Bracasse was ill, suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever, and corns. He was replacing him. The mayor retorted that Pierre Bracasse, being a municipal functionary, could not transmit his function except through the administration. Monsieur Pujol must desist from drumming and crying. Aristide bowed to authority and unstrung his drum. But I was enjoying myself so much, Monsieur Le Maire. You have spoiled my day, said he. The mayor laughed again. There was an irresistible charm and roguishness about the fellow with his intelligent oval face, black van dyke beard, and magically luminous eyes. I should have thought you had enough of drums in your orchestra. Ah, there I am cramped, cried Aristide. I have it in horror, in detestation. Here I am free. I can give vent to all the aspirations of my soul. The mayor mechanically moved from the spot where he had been standing. Aristide, embroidering his theme, mechanically accompanied him. And such is democratic France, and also such was the magnetic, ancient mariner-like power of Aristide, did not eye myself on my first meeting with him at Équimote for helplessly under the spell. That, in a few moments, the amateur town crier and the mayor were walking together side by side, along the case de Carnot engaged in amiable converse. Aristide told the mayor the story of his life, or such incidents of it as were made for the mayor's ears, and when they parted the mayor to lunch, Aristide, to yield up the interdicted drum to Père Bracasse, they shook hands warmly and mutually expressed the wish that they would soon meet again. They met again. Aristide saw to that. They met again that very afternoon in the café on the Place de l'Ago. When Aristide entered, he saw the mayor seated at a table in the company of another prosperous red-ribboned gentleman. Aristide saluted politely and addressed the mayor. The mayor saluted and presented him to Monsieur Carin, the president of the syndicat d'initiative of the town of Perpignan. Monsieur Carin saluted and declared himself enchanted at the encounter. Aristide stood to gossiping until the mayor invited him to take a place at the table and consume liquid refreshment. Aristide glowingly accepted the invitation and cast a look of triumph around the café. Not to all mortals is it given to be the boon companion of the mayor and a president of the syndicat d'initiative. Then ensued a conversation momentous in its consequences. The syndicat d'initiative is a semi-official body existing in most provincial towns in France for the purpose of organizing public festivals for the citizens and developing the resources and possibilities of the town for the general amenity of visitors. Now Perpignan is as picturesque, as sun-smithen, and in spite of the icy Trémontana, even as joyous a place as tourists could desire. And the Carnaval of Perpignan, as a spontaneous outburst of gaiety and pageantry, is unique in France. But Perpignan, being at the end of everywhere and leading nowhere, attracts very few visitors. Béretz is on the Atlantic coast at the other end of the Pyrenees, here as Caen and Monte Carlo on the other side of the Gulf of Lyon. No English or Americans, the only visitors of any accountant, the philosophy of provincial France, flock to Perpignan. This was a melancholy fact bewailed by Monsieur Carras. The town was perishing from lack of Anglo-Saxon support. Monsieur Coca-Roy, the mayor, agreed. If the English and Americans came in their hordes to this paradise of mimosa, 14th century architecture, sunshine, and unique carnival, the fortunes of all the citizens would be assured. Perpignan would outrival Nice, but what could be done? Advertise it, said Aristides, flood the English-speaking world with poetical descriptions of the place, build a row of palatial hotels in the new part of town. It is not known to the Anglo-Saxons. How can you be certain of that? asked Monsieur Carras. Parblè, he cried, with a wide gesture, I have known the English all my life. I speak their language as I speak French, or my native Provençal. I have taught in schools in England. I know the country and the people like my pocket. They have never heard of Perpignan. His companions, acquiesced sadly. Aristides, aglow with a sudden impudent inspiration, lent across the marble table. Monsieur Le Maire and Monsieur Le Président to send a card initiative. I am sick to death of playing the drum, the cattle drum, the triangle, the cymbals, the castanets, and the tambourine in the tournée Goulain. I was born to hire things. In trust to me, he converged the fingertips of both hands to his bosom. To me, Aristides Pujol, the organization of Perpignan via de Blasir, and you will not regret it. The Maire and the President laughed. But my astonishing friend prevailed, not indeed to the extent of being appointed a patronious arbiter elegantiarum of the town of Perpignan, but to the extent of being employed I fear in a subordinate capacity by the Maire and the syndicat in the work of propagandism. The tournée Goulain found another drum and went its tuneful but weary way. And Aristides remained gloriously behind and rubbed his hands with glee. At last he had found permanence in a life where hitherto had been not but transience. At last he had found a sphere worthy of his genius. He began to nourish and sense it, ambitions. He would be the great benefactor of Perpignan. All Roussillian would bless his name. Already he saw his statue on the case de Carnot. His rise in the social scale of the town was meteoric, chiefly owing to the good will of Madame Cocharot, the widowed mother of the Maire. She was a hard-featured old lady with a face that might have been made of corrugated iron, painted yellow, and with the eyes of an old hawk. She dressed always in black, was very devout and rich and narrow and iron-willed. Aristides was presented to her one Sunday afternoon at the café on the Plaza Rago, where on Sunday afternoons all the fashion of Perpignan assembles, and need I say it, she fell at once a helpless victim to his fascination. Accompanying her grandmother was Madame Zelle Stephanie Cocharot, the Maire's niece, a wealthy orphan, as Aristides soon learned, nineteen pretty demure, perfectly brought up, who said we mature and no mature, with that quintessence of modest grace which only a provincial French convent can cultivate. Aristides' heart left his body and rolled at the feet of Madame Zelle Stephanie. It was a way with Aristides' heart, it was always doing that. He was of Provence and not of Peckham Rye or Hoboken, and he could not help it. Aristides called on Madame Cocharot, who entertained him, with sweet front and young wine, dry sponge cakes, and a conversation. After a while he was invited to dinner. In a short space of time he became the intimate friend of the house and played pique with Madame Cocharot, and grew familiar with the family secrets. First he learned that Madame Zelle Stephanie would go to a husband with two hundred and fifty thousand francs. Aristides' heart panted at the feet of Madame Zelle Stephanie. Further he gathered that though Monsieur Cocharot was a personage of great dignity and importance in civic affairs, he was as but a little child in his own house. Madame Cocharot held the money bags. Her son had but little personal fortune. He had reached the age of forty-five without being able to marry. Marriage unauthorized by Madame Cocharot meant immediate poverty and the testamentary assignment of Madame Cocharot's fortune to various religious establishments. None of the objects of Monsieur Cocharot's matrimonial desire had pleased Madame Cocharot, and none of Madame Cocharot's blushing candidates had caused a pulse in Monsieur Cocharot's being to beat the faster. The mayor held his mother in professed adoration and holy terror. She held him in abject subjection. Aristides became the confidant in turn of Madame's sour philosophy of life, and of Monsieur's impudence and despair. As for Madame Zelle Stephanie, she kept on saying, We, Monsieur, and No, Monsieur, in a crescendo of maddening demure-ness. So, past the Halcyon hours, during the daytime, Aristides in a corner of the mayor's office drew up flamboyant circulars in English, which would have put a pushing land and estate agent in the new Jerusalem to the blush, and in the evening played piquet with Madame Cocharot, while Madame Zelle Stephanie, a model of modest piety, worked pure but nameless birds and flowers on her embroidery frame. Monsieur Le Maire, of course, played his game of mania at the café after dinner, and generally came home just before Aristides took his leave. If it had not been for the presence of Madame Zelle Stephanie, it would not have been gave Aristides, but love gilded the moments. On the first evening of the carnival, which lasts nearly a fortnight in Perpignan, Aristides, in spite of a sweeter wee-vissure than ever from Madame Zelle Stephanie, made an excuse to slip away rather earlier than usual, and front door, having closed behind him, crossed the strip of gravel with a quick step and flung out of the iron gates. Now the house had an isolated position in the new quarter of the town. It was perky and modern and defaced by all sorts of orial windows and and pinnacles, which gave it a top-heavy appearance, and it was surrounded by a low brick wall. Aristides, on emerging through the iron gates, heard the sound of scurrying footsteps on the side of the wall nearest to the town, and reached the corner just in time to see a masquer attired in a pierol costume, and wearing what seemed to be a pig's head, disappear round the further angle. Paying no heed to this phenomenon, Aristides lit a cigarette and walked, in anticipation of enjoyment, to the great Avenue de Plantanes, where the revelry of the Carnival was being held. Aristides was young, he loved flirtation, and flirtation flourished in the Avenue de Plantanes. The next morning the mayor entered his office with a very grave face. Do you know what has happened? My house was broken into last night. The safe in my study was forced open, and 3,000 francs, and some valuable jewellery were stolen. Qu'il m'allait, he cried, throwing himself into a chair, and wiping his forehead. It is not I who can afford to lose 3,000 francs at once, if they had robbed Mamma, it would have been a different matter. Aristides expressed his sympathy. Whom do you suspect, he asked. A robber, Barbara, said the mayor, the police are even now making their investigations. The door opened, and a plain-clothes detective entered the office. Monsieur Le Maire, said he, with an air of triumph, I know a burglar. Both men leapt to their feet. Ah! said Aristides. Ah! la bonheur! cried the mayor. Arrest him at once, said Aristides. Alas! Monsieur said the detective, that I cannot do. I have called on him this morning, and his wife tells me that he left for the North yesterday afternoon. But it is José Puecos that did it. I know his ways. Said the mayor reflectively, I know him also, an evil fellow. But why are you not looking for him? exclaimed Aristides. Arrangements have been made, replied the detective coldly. Aristides suddenly bethought him of the furtive massacre of the night before. I can put you on his track, said he, and related what he knew. The mayor looked dubious. Oh! it wasn't he, he remarked. José Puecos, Monsieur, would not commit a burglar in a pig's head, said the policeman, with the cutting contempt of the expert. It is a vow, I suppose, that Aristides stung to irony. I have always heard he was a religious man. The detective did not condescend to reply. Monsieur Le Maire said he, I should like to examine the premises and beg that you will have the kindness to accompany me. With the permission of Monsieur Le Maire, said Aristides, I too will come. Certainly, said the mayor, the more intelligences concentrated on the affair the better. I am not of that opinion, said the detective. It is the opinion of Monsieur Le Maire, said Aristides rebukingly, and that is enough. When they reached the house, distances are short and perpignan. They found policemen abyssily engaged with tape measures around the premises. Old Madame Cocoro in a clean white linen dressing-jacket, bare-headed, defying the keen air, stood grim and eager in the midst of them. Good morning, Monsieur Peugeot, what do you think of this? A veritable catastrophe, said Aristides. She shrugged her iron shoulders. I tell him, it serves him right, she said cuttingly. A sensible person keeps his money under his mattress, and not in a tin machine by a window which anyone can get at. I wonder we've not been murdered in our beds before. Ah, mamma! expostulated the mayor of Perpignan. But she turned her back on him and worried the policemen. They, having probed and measured and consulted with the detective, came to an exact conclusion. The thief had climbed over the back wall. There were his footsteps. He had entered by the kitchen door. There were the marks of infraction. He had broken open the safe. There was the helpless condition of the lock. No one in Perpignan but José Puecos, with his bad socialistic Barcelona blood, could have done it. These brilliant results were arrived at, after much clamour and argument, and imposing, prosaible. Aristides felt strangely depressed. He had narrated his story of the pig-headed a massacre to unresponsive ears. Here was a melodramatic scene, in which he not only was not playing a leading part, but did not even carry a banner. To be less than a super in life's pageant was abhorrent to the nature of Aristides Pujol. Mutily he wandered away from the little crowd. He hated the police and their heirs of gods, for whom exists no mystery. He did not believe in the kitchen door theory. Why should not the thief have simply entered by the window of the study, which, like the kitchen, was on the ground floor? He went round the house and examined the window by himself. No, there were no traces of burglary, the fastenings of the outside shutters, and the high window were intact. The police were right. Suddenly his quick eye lit on something in the gravel path, and his heart gave a great leap. It was a little round pink disc of confetti. Aristides picked it up and began to dance and shake his fist at the invisible police. Aha! he cried. Now we shall see who is right and who is wrong. He began to search and soon found another bit of confetti. A little further along he discovered a third and a fourth. By using his walking stick he discovered that they formed a trail to a point in the wall. He examined the wall. There, if his eyes did not deceive him, were evidences of mortar dislodged by nefarious toes. And there Mirabilie de Vissu, at the very bottom of the wall, lay a little woolen pompon or tassel, just the kind of pompon that gives a finish to a pierol's shoes. Evidently the scoundrel had scraped it off against the bricks while clambering over. The pig-headed masquer stood, confessed. A less imaginative man than Aristides would have immediately acquainted the police with his discovery. But Aristides had been insulted. A dull mechanical bureaucrat who tried to discover crime with a tape measure had dared to talk contemptuously of his intelligence. On his wooden head should be poured the vials of his contempt. Trant de la, cried Aristides, a Provençal oath which he only used on sublime occasions. It is I who will discover the thief and make the whole lot of you the laughing stock of Perpignan. So did my versatile friend, joyously confident in his powers, start on his glorious career as a private detective. Madame Cochoreau said he that evening, while she was dealing a hand at Piquet, what would you say if I solved this mystery and brought this scoundrel to justice? To say that you would have more sense than the police would be a poor compliment, said the old lady. Stephanie raised cloistral eyes from her embroidery frame. She sat in a distant corner of the formal room, a discreetly lit by a shaded lamp. You have a clue, monsieur? She asked with adorable timidity. Aristides tapped his forehead with his forefinger. All is there, mademoiselle? They exchanged a glance, the first they had exchanged while Madame Cochoreau was frowning at her cards, and Aristides interpreted the glance as the promise of supreme reward for great deeds accomplished. The mayor returned early from the café, a dejected man. The loss of his hundred and twenty pounds weighed heavily on his mind. He kissed his mother sorrowfully on the cheek, his niece on the brow, held out a drooping hand to Aristides, and subsiding into a stiff imitation of Louis's extinct chair, rested his elbows on its unconsoling arms, and hid his face in his hands. My poor uncle, you suffer so much! breathed Stephanie in divine compassion. Little Saint murmured Aristides devoutly, as he declared four aces and three queens. The mayor moved his head sympathetically. He was suffering from the sharpest pain in his pocket he had felt for many a day. Madame Cochoreau's attention wandered from the cards. Dith donc, Ferdinnde, she said sharply, why are you not wearing your ring? The mayor looked up. Mama said he had stolen. Your beautiful ring, cried Aristides. The mayor's ring, which he usually wore, was a remarkable personal adornment. It consisted in a couple of snakes in old gold, clenching an enormous topaz between their heads. Only a mayor could have worn it with decency. You did not mention it to me as being one of the stolen objects. The mayor rose wearily. It was to avoid giving you pain, Mama. I know what a value you set upon the ring of my good Aunt Philamine. And now it is lost, said Madame Cochoreau, throwing down her cards, a ring that belonged to a saint. Yes, Monsieur Pujole Saint, though she was my sister, a ring that had been blessed by his holiness the Pope. But Mama expastulated the mayor. That was an imagination of Aunt Philamine, just because she went to Rome and had an audience like anyone else. Silence, impious atheist, that you are, cried the old lady. I tell you it was blessed by his holiness. And when I tell you a thing, it is true. That is the son of today. He will call his mother a liar as soon as look at her. It was a ring beyond price, a ring such as there are few in the world. And instead of taking care of this precious heirloom, he goes and locks it away in a safe. Ah, you fill me with shame. Monsieur Pujole, I am sorry. I can play no more. I must retire. Stephanie, will you accompany me? And gathering up Stephanie, like a bunch of snowdrops, the yellow galvanized iron old lady, swept out of the room. The mayor looked at Aristide and it moved his arms dejectedly. Such are women, said he. My own mother nearly broke her heart because I would not become a priest, said Aristide. I wish I were a Turk, said the mayor. I too, said Aristide. He took pouch and papers and rolled a cigarette. If there is a man living who can say he has not felt like that at least once in his life, he ought to be exhibited at a fair. How well you understand me, my good Pujole, said Monsieur Cochorot. The next few days passed visibly for Aristide. He devoted every spare hour to his new task. He scrutinized every inch of ground between the study window and the wall. He drew radiating lines from the point of the wall whence the miscreant had started homeward and succeeded in finding more confetti. He cross-examined every purveyor of pierrot shoes and pig's heads in perpignia. His researches soon came to the ears of the police, still tracing the mysterious Olzé Puigasse. A certain good humor to bring a dear, whose Catalan French Aristide found difficult to understand, but with whom he had formed a derisory kind of friendship, urged him to desist from the hopeless task. Jamais de la vie, he cried, the honor of Aristide Pujole is at stake. The thing became an obsession. Not only his honor, but his future was at stake. If he discovered the thief, he would be the most talked of person in perpignia. He would know how to improve his position. He would rise to dizzy heights. Perpignia, via de plaisir, would acclaim him as a savior. The government would decorate him. And finally, both the mayor and Madame Cochoreau would place the blushing and adorable mademoiselle Stépanie in his arms and her 250,000 francs dowry in his pocket. Never before had so dazzling a prize shimmered before him in the near distance. On the last Saturday night of the carnival, there was a special course though for the populace. In the avenue de plantanna, the long splendid avenue of plain trees, just outside the port Notre-Dame, which is the special gloria perpignan. The masqueras danced to three or four bands. They threw confetti and serpentine. They rode hobby horses and beat each other with bladders. They joined in bands of youths and maidens and whirled down the avenue in bachic madness. It was a corso blanc and everyone wore white, chiefly modifications of pierrot costume, and everyone was masked. Chinese lanterns hung from the trees and in festoons around the bandstands and darted about in the hands of the revelers. Above, great standard electric lamps shed their white glare upon the eddying throng casting a myriad of grotesque shadows. Shouts and laughter and music filled the air. Arastidi in a hideous red mask and with a bag of confetti under his arm plunged with enthusiasm into the revelry. To enjoy yourself you only had to throw your arm round a girl's waist and swing her off wildly to the beat of the music. If you wanted to let her go, you did so. If not, you talked in the squeaky voice that is the recognized etiquette of the carnaval. On the other hand any girl could catch you in her grip and sweep you along with her. Your mad career generally ended in a crowd and a free fight of confetti. There was one fair masquer, however, to whom Arastidi became peculiarly attracted. Her movements were free, her figure dainty, and her repartee below her mask more than usually peaking. This hurly burly, said he, drawing her into a quiet eddy of the stream, is no place for the communion of two twin souls. Bo masque, said she, I perceive that you are a man of much sensibility. Shall we find a spot where we can mingle the overflow of our exquisite natures? As you like. A long hop, cried he, and seizing her round the waist, danced through the maskers to the very far end of the avenue. There is a sequestered spot round here, he said. They turned. The sequestered spot, a seat beneath a plain tree with a lonesome arc lamp shining full upon it, was occupied. It's a pity, said the fair unknown. But Arastidi said nothing. He stared. On the seat reposed an amorous couple. The lady wore a white domino and a black mask. The cavalier, whose arm was around the lady's waist, wore a pig's head and a clown or pierol's dress. Arastidi's eyes fell upon the shoes. On one of them the pompon was missing. The lady's left hand tenderly padded the cardboard snout of her lover. The fierce light of the arc lamp caught the hand and revealed on the fourth finger a topaz ring, the topaz held in its place by two snake's heads. Arastidi stared for two seconds. It seemed to him two centuries. Then he turned simply, caught his partner again, and with a long rope raised back to the middle of the throng. There in the crush he unceremoniously lost her and sped like a maniac to the entrance gates. His friend the brigadier happened to be on duty. He unmasked himself, dragged the police agent aside, and breathless, half hysterical, acquainted him with the astounding discovery. I was right, mon vieux. There at the end of the avenue you will find them, the pig-headed prowler I saw, with my pompon missing from his shoe and his worn amie wearing the stolen ring. Ah, you police people with your tape measures and your Jose Puegas. It is I, Arastidi Pujol, who have come to Papignon to teach you your business. What do you want me to do? asked the brigadier stallededly. Do, cried Arastidi. Do you think I want you to kiss them and cover them with roses? What do you generally do with thieves in Papignon? Arrest them, said the brigadier. Eh, bien, said Arastidi. Then he paused, possibly the drama of the situation, striking him. No, wait. Go and find them. Don't take your eyes off them. I will run and fetch Monsieur Le Maire, and he will identify his property. Et Puy knows au ron la scène affaire. The stout brigadier grunted an assent and rolled monumentally down the avenue. Arastidi, his pulse is throbbing, his heart exulting, ran to the maire's house. He was rather a panting triumph than a man. He had beaten the police of Perpignan. He had discovered the thief. He was the hero of the town. Soon would the wedding bells be playing. He envied the marble of the future statue. He would like to be on the pedestal himself. He dashed past the maidservant who opened the door and burst into the prim salon. Madame Cochoreau was alone, just preparing to retire for the night. Madame Estephanie had already gone to bed. Mon Dieu, what is this? she cried. Madame shouted he glorious news. I've found the thief. He told his tale. Where was Monsieur Le Maire? He has not yet come back from the café. I'll go and find him, said Arastidi. And waste time. Bah! said the iron-faced old lady, catching up a black silk shawl. I will come with you and identify the ring of my sainte-sister Filamène. Who should know it better than I? As you like, Madame, said Arastidi. Two minutes found them on their journey. Madame Cochoreau, in spite of her sixty-five years, trudged along with springing step. They don't make metal like me nowadays, she said scornfully. When they arrived at the gate of the avenue, the police on guard saluted. The mother of Monsieur Le Maire was up power in Perpignan. Monsieur, said Arastidi in lordly fashion, to a policeman, will you have the goodness to make a passage through the town for Madame Cochoreau, and then help the Brigadier Pestac to arrest the burglar who broke into the house of Monsieur Le Maire. The man obeyed, went ahead, clearing the path with the unceremoniousness of the law, and Arastidi, giving his arm to Madame Cochoreau, followed gloriously. As the impressive progress continued, the revelers ceased their revels, and followed in the wake of Arastidi. At the end of the avenue, Brigadier Pestac was on guard. He approached. They are still there, he said. Good, said Arastidi. The two police officers, Arastidi and Madame Cochoreau, turned to the corner. At the side of the police, the guilty couples started to their feet. Madame Cochoreau pounced like a hawk on the masked lady's hand. I identify it, she cried. Brigadier, give these people in charge for theft. The white masked crowd surged round the group, in the midst of which stood Arastidi, transfigured. It was his supreme moment. He flourished in one hand his red mask, and in the other a pompom which he had extracted from his pocket. This I found, said he, beneath the wall of Monsieur Le Maire's garden, behold, the shoe of the accused. The crowd murmured their applause and admiration. Neither of the prisoners stirred. The pig's head grinned at the world with its inane painted leer. A rumbling voice beneath it said, we will go quietly. Attention, si vous plaît, said the policeman, and each holding a prisoner by the arm, they made a way through the crowd. Madame Cochoreau and Arastidi followed close behind. What did I tell you? Quite Arastidi to the Brigadier? It's Puegos, all the same, said the Brigadier, over his shoulder. I bet you it's not, said Arastidi, and, striding swiftly to the back of the male prisoner, whipped off the pig's head and revealed to the petrified throng the familiar features of the Mayor of Perpignan. Arastidi regarded him for two or three seconds, open mouthed, and then fell back into the arms of the Brigadier Pestot screaming with convulsive laughter. The crowd caught the infection of merriment. Shrieks filled the air. The vast mass of masqueraders held their sides swayed helplessly, rolled in heaps, men and women, tearing each other's garments as they fell. Arastidi, deposited on the ground by the Brigadier Pestot, laughed and laughed. When he recovered some consciousness of surroundings, he found the Mayor bending over him and using language that would have made Tofett put his fingers in its ears. He rose. Madame Coca-Roe shook her thin fists in his face. Imbecile! Triple-foo! she cried. Arastidi turned to tail and fled. There was nothing else to do. And that was the end of his career at Perpignan. Vanished were the dreams of civic eminence, melted into thin air the statue on the Quiz Adi Carnot, faded to the vision of the modest Stephanie, crowned with orange blossoms, gone forever the two hundred and fifty thousand francs, never since Al-Nashir kicked over his basket of crockery was there such a hideous welter of shattered hopes. If the Mayor had been allowed to go disguised to the police station he would have disclosed his identity and that of the Lady in private to Austrian functionaries. He might have forgiven Arastidi, but Arastidi had exposed him to the derision of the whole of Roussillon and the never-ending wrath of Madame Cochoreau. Ruefully, Arastidi asked himself the question, why had the Mayor not taken him into the competence of his masquerading escapade? Why had he not told him of the pretty widow whom, unknown to his mother, he was courting? Why had he permitted her to wear the ring which he had given her so as to spite his sainted Aunt Filamene? And why had he gone on wearing the pig's head after Arastidi had told him of his suspicions? Ruefully, Arastidi found no answers save in the general chuckle-headedness of mankind. If it hadn't been such a good farce I should have wept like a cow, said Arastidi, after relating this story. But every time I wanted to cry I laughed. Nonditir! You should have seen his face and the face of Madame Cochoreau. She opened her mouth wide showing ten yellow teeth and squealed like a rabbit. Oh, it was a good farce. He was very cross with me, he added, after a smiling pause, and when I got back to Paris I tried to pacify him. What did you do? I asked. I sent him my photograph. Said Arastidi. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of the Joyous Adventures of Arastidi Pujol by William John Locke This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6 The Adventure of Florette One day when Arastidi was discoursing on the inexhaustible subject of woman, I pulled him up. My good friend, said I, you seem to have fallen in love with every woman you have ever met. But for how many of them have you really cared? Mon Dieu! For all of them! He cried, springing from his chair and making a windmill of himself. Come, come, said I, all that amorousness is just gallic exuberance. Have you ever been really in love in your life? How should I know? said he. But he lit a cigarette, turned away, and looked out a window. There was a short silence. He shrugged his shoulders, apparently in response to his own thoughts. Then he turned again suddenly, threw his cigarette into the fire, and thrust his hands into his pockets. He sighed. Perhaps there was Florette, he said, not looking at me, à ce qu'on sait jamais. That wasn't her real name. It was Marie-Josephine, but people called her Florette. She looked like a flower, you know. I nodded in order to signify my elementary acquaintance with the French tongue. The most delicate little flower you can conceive, he continued. Tiens, she was a slender lily, so white, and her hair, the flash of gold on it, and she had eyes, des yeux de pervanche, as we say in French. What is pervanche in English, that little pale blue flower? Periwinkle, said I. Periwinkle eyes, my God, what a language. Ah, no, she had des yeux de pervanche. She was diaphanous, impalpable as cigarette smoke, a little nose like nothing at all, with nostrils like infinitesimal seashells. Anyone could have made a mouthful of her. Ah, crème non d'eau tiens. Life is drole. It has no common sense. It is the game of a motte-bank. I've never told you about Florette. It was this way. And the story he narrated, I will do my best to set down. The gore du monsieur Bocadon, of the Hôtel d'Élequerty, at Nîmes, whose grateful devotion to Aristide has already been recorded, had her brother in Paris, who managed the Hôtel du Soleil et de l'Écosse, strange conjuncture, a flourishing third-rate hostelry in the neighborhood of the Arles-central. Dither flocked sturdy Britons and knickerbockers, stockings, and cloth hats, two tons with tin botanizing boxes for lunch transportation, and American school marms realizing at last the dream of their modest and laborious lives. Accommodation was cheap, manners were easy, and knowledge of the gay city less than rudimentary. To Monsieur Bocadon of Paris, Aristide, one August morning, brought glowing letters of introduction from Monsieur and Madame Bocadon of Nîmes. Monsieur Bocadon of Paris welcomed Aristide as a provence and a brother. He brought out from a cupboard in his private bureau an hospitable bottle of old armagnac and discourse with Aristide on the seductions of the south. It was there that he longed to retire, to a dainty little hotel of his own with a smart clientèle. The clientèle of the Hôtel du Soleil et de l'Écosse was not to his taste. He spoke slightingly of his guests. There are people who know how to travel, said he, and people who don't. These lost muttons here don't, and they make hotel-keeping a nightmare instead of a joy. A hundred times a day have I to tell them the way to Notre-Dame. Said he, gulping down his disgust and the rest of his armagnac, it is back-breaking. To say, mon vieux, cried Aristide. He had the most lightning way of establishing an intimacy. I have an idea. These lost sheep need a shepherd. Eh bien, said M. Bocaudon. Eh bien, said Aristide, why should not I be the shepherd, the official shepherd, attach the Hôtel du Soleil et de l'Écosse? Explain yourself, said M. Bocaudon. Aristide, letting loose his swift imagination, explained copiously and hypnotized M. Bocaudon with his glittering eye until he had assured to himself a means of livelihood. From that moment he became the familiar genius of the Hôtel. Scorning the title of guide, lest he should be associated in the minds of the guests, with the squalid scoundrels who infest the boulevard, he constituted himself a directeur de l'agence bourgeois. An obfuscated Bocaudon formed the rest of the agency and pocketed a percentage of Aristide's earnings. And Aristide, addressed as director by the Anglo-Saxons, Michel de Directeur by the Latins, and Herr de Racteur by the Toutons, walked about like a peacock in a barnyard. At that period, and until he had learned of Bédaker by heart, a process which nearly gave him brain fever, and still he declares or brings terror into his slumbers, he knew little more of the history, topography, and art treasures of Paris than the flock he shepherded. He must have dealt out paralyzing information. The Britons and the Germans seemed not to heed, but now and then the American school-marms unmasked the charlatan. On such occasions, his unfaltering impudence reached heights truly sublime. The sharp-witted ladies looked in his eyes, forgot their wrongs, and, if he had told them that the Eiffel Tower had been erected by the Pilgrim Fathers, would have accepted the statement meekly. My friend, Zedair Estiti, with Provençal flourish and Braga d'Ossio, I never met a woman that would not sooner be misled by me than be taught by the whole faculty of the Serbonne. He had been practising this honourable profession for about a month, lodging with the good Madame Bidou at 213 Bisse, Rue Saint-Honoré, when, one morning in the vestibule of the Hotel, he ran into his old friend Batterby, whom he had known during the days of his professorship of French at the Academy for Young Ladies in Manchester. The pair had been fellow lodgers in the same house in the Ruchon Road, but, whereas Estiti lived in one sunless bed-sitting room, looking on a forest of chimney-pots, Batterby, a man of luxury and ease, had a suite of apartments on the first floor, and kept an inexhaustible supply of whiskey, cigars, and such-like, etc., of the opulent and the very ugliest prize bullpup, you can imagine. Batterby and Gaudier Raymond went to an office in Manchester. In Gaudier Raymond he often attended race meetings. He had rings and scarf pins and rattled gold in his trousers' pockets. He might have been an insufferable young man for a poverty-stricken teacher of French to have, as a fellow lodger, but he was not. Like all those born to high estate, he made no vulgar parade of his wealth, and to Estiti he showed the most affable hospitality. A friendship had arisen between them, which the years had idealized rather than impaired. So when they met that morning in the vestibule of the Hotel du Soleil et de la Côte, their greetings were fervent and prolonged. In person, Batterby tended towards burliness. He had a red, jolly face, divided unequally by a great black moustache, and his manner was hearty. He slapped Estiti on the back many times and shook him by the shoulders. We must have a drink on this, straight away, old man, said he. You are so strange, you English, said Estiti. The moment you have an emotion you must celebrate it by a drink. My dear fellow, I've just come into a fortune. Let us have a drink. Or, my friend, my poor old father has just been run over by an omnibus. Let us have a drink. My good Reginald, look at the clock. It is only nine in the morning. Robb, said Reginald, drink is good at any time. They went into the dark and deserted smoking room, where Batterby ordered scotch and soda, and Estiti, an abstemious man, a plain vermouth. What's that, Muck, asked Batterby, when the waiter brought the drinks? Estiti explained. Whiskey's good enough for me, laughed the other. Estiti laughed, too, out of politeness and out of joy at meeting his old friend. With you playing at guide here, said Batterby, when he had learned Estiti's position in the hotel, it seems I have come to the right shop. There are no flies on me, you know, but when a man comes to Paris for the first time, he likes to be put up to the ropes. Your first visit to Paris? cried Estiti. Montfier, what wonders are going to ravish your eyes? What a time you're going to have! Batterby bit off the end of a great black cigar. If the missus will let me, said he. Missus, your wife? You are married, my dear Reginald? Estiti leaped in his unexpected fashion, from his chair, and almost embraced him. Ah, but you are happy, you are lucky. It was always like that. You open your mouth and the larks fall ready, roasted into it. My congratulations, and she is here in this hotel. Your wife? Tell me about her. Batterby bit a cigar. She's nothing to write home about, he said, modestly. She's French. French? No, you don't say so, exclaimed Estiti in ecstasy. Well, she was brought up in France from her childhood, but her parents were Finns. Funny place for people to come from, Finland, isn't it? You could never expect it. Might just as well think of him coming from Lapland. She's an orphan. I met her in London. But that's romantic. And she is young, pretty? Oh yes, in a way, said the proprietary Britain. And her name? Ah, she has a fool name, Florette. I wanted to call her Flossy, but she didn't like it. I should think not, said Estiti. Florette is an adorable name. I suppose it's right enough, said Batterby. But if I want to call her good ol' Flossy, why should she object? You married old man? No? Well, wait till you are. You think women or angels all wrapped up in feathers and wings beneath their doggery, don't you? Well, they're just bloomin' porcupines, all bristling with objections. Mais à longtemps, cried Estiti, You love her, your beautiful Finnish orphan, brought up in France and romantically met in London with the adorable name? Oh, that's all right, said the easy Batterby, lifting his half-emptied glass. Here's Locke. Ah, no, said Estiti, leaning forward and clinking his wine glass against the other stumbler. Here is to Madame. When they returned to the vestibule, they found Mrs. Batterby patiently awaiting her lord. She rose from her seat at the approach of the two men. A fragile flower of a girl, about three and twenty, pale as a lily, with exquisite, though rather large, features, and with eyes of the blue of the Péronche, in deference to Estiti, I use the French name, which seemed to smile trustfully through perpetual tears. She was dressed in pale, shadowy blue, graceful, impalpable, like the smoke, said Estiti, curling upwards from a cigarette. Regy has spoken of you many times, Monsieur, said Florett, after the introduction had been effected. Estiti was touched. Fancy him remembering me. C'est bon vieux, Reginald, madame, said he. Your husband is the best fellow in the world. Feed him with sugar and he won't bite, said Batterby, whereas they all laughed as if it had been a very good joke. Well, what about this Paris of yours, he asked after a while. The Mrs. knows as little of it as I do. Really? asked Estiti. I lived all my life impressed before I went to England, she said, modestly. She wants to see all the sights, the louvre, the morgue, the gâte de drale, of what's its name that you've got here. I've got to go round to, pleases her, and don't hurt me. You must tote us about. We'll have a cab, old girl, as you can't do much walking, and good old bourgeois will come with us. But that is ideal, cried Estiti, flying to the door to order the cab. But before he could reach it, he was stopped by three or four waiting tourists who pointed, some to the clock, some to the wagonette standing outside, and asked the director when the personally conducted a party was to start. Estiti, who had totally forgotten the responsibilities attached to the directorship of the agent S'appujot, and, but for this reminder, would have blissfully left his sheep to err and stray over Paris by themselves, returned Crestfallen to his friends and explained the situation. But we'll join the party, said the cheery batterby, the more the merrier. Good old bean-fest, will there be room? Blenty replied Estiti brightening, but would it meet the wishes of Madame? Her pale face flushed ever so slightly, and the soft eyes fluttered at him, a half astonished, half grateful glance. With my husband and you, Monsieur, I should love it, she said. So Mr. and Mrs. Batterby joined the personally conducted party, as they did the next morning, and the next, and several mornings after, and received esoteric information concerning the monuments of Paris that is hidden, even from the erudite. The evenings, however, Estiti, being off duty, devoted to their special entertainment. He took them to riotous and perspiring restaurants, where they dined gorgeously for three fangs, fifty wine included, to open-air café Canthère in the Champs-Elysées, which Lorette found infinitely diverting, but which bored Batterby, who knew not French, to stutter as slumber, to crowded appraiseries on the Boulevard, where Batterby awakened under a steady flow of whiskey to appreciative contemplation of Paris life. As in the old days of the Rochon road, Batterby flung his money about with un-austentatious generosity. He was out for a binault, he declared, and hang the expense. Estiti, whose purse scantily filled, truth to say, by the prophets of the augeants au bourgeois, could contribute but modestly to this reckless expenditure, found himself forced to accept his friend's lavish hospitality. Once or twice, delicately, he suggested withdrawal from the evening's dissipation. But, my good Monsieur Vichol, said Lorette, with childish tragicality in her po-ban's eyes, without you we shall be lost, we shall not enjoy ourselves at all, at all. So, Estiti, out of love for his friend, and out of he knew not what for his friend's wife, continued to show them the sights of Paris. They went to the cabaretse Montmartre, the ciel, where one is served by angels, the enfer, where one is served by red devils, and a tartary and lighting, the néant, where one has coffins for tables, then all of which, vulgarity, has imagined no more joy-killing dreariness, but which caused Lorette to grip Estiti's hand tight in scared wonderment, and Batterby to chuckle exceedingly. They went to the bagouillet, and to various other balls, undreamed of by the tourists, where Lorette danced with Estiti, as light as an autumn leaf, tossed by the wind, and Batterby absorbed a startling assortment of alcohols. In a word, Estiti procured for his friends prodigious diversion. How do you like this, old girl? Batterby asked one night, at the moulin de la galette, a dizzying, not very decorous, and to the unsophisticated visitor, a dangerous place of entertainment. Better than Great Quorum Street, isn't it? She smiled and laid her hand on his. She was a woman a few words, but of many caressing actions. I ought to let you into a secret, said he. This is our honeymoon. Who would have thought it? A fortnight ago she was being killed in a Bloomsbury boarding house. There were two of them. She and a girl called Kerry. I used to call them Fetch and Kerry. This one was Fetch. Well, she Fetched me, didn't you, old girl? And now you're Mrs. Reginald Batterby, living at your ease, huh? But Tom would de grace any sphere, said our Estiti. I wish I had more education, said Florette Humbley. Monsieur Pujol and yourself are so clever that you must laugh at me. We do sometimes, but you mustn't mind us. Remember, at the what do you call it, little Chantier Versailles? The Grand Drianon, replied our Estiti. Ah, that's it. When you were showing us the rooms, what is the Empress Josephine doing now? He mimicked her accent. And the poor soul gone to glory a couple of hundred years ago. The little mouth puckered at the corners and moisture gathered in the blue eyes. Mais mon Dieu! It was natural the mistake, cried our Estiti gallantly. The Empress Eugénie, the wife of another Napoleon, is still living. Bien sûr, said Florette. How was I to know? Never mind, old girl, said Batterby. You're living all right, and out of that beastly boarding house, and that's the chief thing. Another month of it would have killed her. She had a cough that shook her to bits. She's looking better already, isn't she, Pujol? After this, our Estiti learned much of her simple history, which she at first had been too shy to reveal. The child of Finnish sea folk, who had drifted to Brest and died there, she had been adopted by an old Breton sea dog and his wife. And on their death she had entered, as made, the service of an English lady, residing in the town, who afterwards had taken her to England. After a while, reverses of fortune had compelled the lady to dismiss her, and she had taken the situation in the boarding house, where she had ruined her health and met the opulent and conquering Batterby. She had not much chance, poor child, of acquiring a profound knowledge of the history of the First Empire, but her manners were refined, and her ways gentle and her voice was soft. And our Estiti, citizen of the world, for whom caste distinctions existed not, thought her the most exquisite flower grown in earth's garden. He told her so, much to her blushing satisfaction. One night, about three weeks after the Batterby's arrival in Paris, Batterby sent his wife to bed and invited Aristiti to accompany him for a half hour to a neighboring café. He looked grave and troubled. I've been upset by a telegram, said he, when the drinks have been ordered. I'm called away to New York on business. I must catch the boat from Sherbourg tomorrow evening. Now, I can't take floret with me. Women and business don't mix. She has jolly well got to stay here. I shan't be away more than a month. I'll leave her plenty of money to go on with. But what's worrying me is, how is she going to stick it? So, look here, old man. You're my power, aren't you? He stretched out his hand. Aristiti grasped it impulsively. Why, of course, Melvia. If I felt that I could leave her in your charge, all on the square, as a real straight pal, I should go away happy. She shall be my sister, cried Aristiti, and I shall give her all the devotion of a brother. I swear it. Tiena, what can I swear it on? He flung out his arms and looked around the café as if in search of an object. I swear it on the head of my mother. Have no fear. I, Aristiti Pujol, have never betrayed the sacred obligations of friendship. I accept her as a consecrated trust. You only need to have said right, oh, and I would have believed you, said Batterby. I haven't told her yet. There'll be blubbering all night. Let us have another drink. When Aristiti arrived at Hotel du Soleil à Délicose at nine o'clock the next morning, he found that Batterby had left Paris by an early train. Florett, he did not meet until he brought back the sightseers to the fold in the evening. She had wept much during the day, but she smiled bravely at Aristiti, a woman who could not stand in the way of her husband's business. By the way, what is Reginald's business? Aristiti asked. She did not know. Reginald never spoke to her of such things. Perhaps she was too ignorant to understand. But he will make a lot of money by going to America, she said. Then, as she was silent for a few moments, mon Dieu, she sighed at last, how long the day has been. It was the beginning of many long days for Florett. Reginald did not write from Scherberg or a cable from New York, as he had promised, and the return American mail brought no letter. The days passed drearily. Sometimes, for the sake of human society, she accompanied the tourist parties of the Agence à Peugeot, but the thrill had passed from the morgue, and the glory had departed from Versailles. Sometimes, she wandered out by herself into the streets and public gardens. But pretty, unprotected and fragile, she attracted the attention of evil or careless men, which struck cold terror into her heart. Most often she sat alone and listless in the hotel, reading the fouettons of the Petit Journal, and waiting for the post to bring her news. Mon Dieu, Monsieur Peugeot, what can have happened? Nothing at all, chère petite madame. Question and answer came many times a day. Only some foolish misschance, which will soon be explained. The good Reginald has written, and his letter has been lost in the post. He had been obliged to go on business to San Francisco, or Buenos Aires. Eh, que voulez-vous? One cannot have letters from those places in twenty-four hours. If only he had taken me with him. But, dear madame Floret, he could not expose you to the hardships of travel. You who are as fragile as a cobweb, how could you go to Patagonia, or Senegal, or Baltimore, those wild places where there are no comforts for women? You must be reasonable. I am sure you will get a letter soon. Or else, in a day or two, he will come with his good, honest face, as if nothing had occurred. These English are like that. And call for whiskey and soda. Be comforted, chère petite madame. Aristite did his best to comfort her, through her in the companionship of decent women staying at the hotel, and devoted his evenings to her entertainment. But the days passed, and Reginald Badderby, with the good, honest face, neither wrote nor ordered whiskey and soda. Floret began to pine and fade. One day she came to Aristite, Monsieur Pujol, I have no more money left. Bien agré, said Pujol, the good Boca d'Or will have to give you credit. I'll arrange it. But I already owe for three weeks, said Floret. Aristite sought Boca d'Or. One week more was all the latter dared allow. But her husband will return and pay you. He is my old and intimate friend. I make myself hoarse in telling it to you, with Ned, that you are. But Boca d'Or, who had to account to higher powers, the proprietors of the hotel, was helpless. At the end of the week, Floret was called upon to give up her room. She wept with despair. Aristite wept with fury. Boca d'Or wept out of sympathy. Already, said Boca d'Or, the proprietors would blame him for not using the legal right to detain Madame's luggage. Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what is to become of me, wail Floret. You forget, Madame, said Aristite, with one of his fine flourishes, that you are the sacred trust of Aristite Pujol. But I can't accept your money, objected Floret. Tront de l'air, he cried. Did your husband put you in my charge, or did he not? Am I your legal guardian, or am I not? If I am your legal guardian, what right of you to question the arrangements made by your husband? Answer me that. Floret, too gentle and too miserable for intricate argument, sighed. But it is your money all the same. Now, Aristite turned to Boca d'Or. Try, said he, to convince a woman. Do you want proofs? Wait there a minute while I get them from the safe of the augeant's Pujol. He disappeared into the bureau, where, secure from observation, he tore an oblong strip from a sheet of stiff paper, and, using an indelible pencil, wrote out something fantastic, halfway between a shack and a bill of exchange, forged as well as he could from memory the signature of Reginald Paterby. The imitation of handwriting was one of Aristite's many odd accomplishments, and made the document look legal by means of a receipt stamp, which he took from Boca d'Or's drawer. He returned to the vestibule with the strip folded and somewhat crumpled in his hand. Voila, said he, handing it boldly to Floret. Here is your husband's guarantee to me, your guardian for four thousand francs. Floret examined the forgery. The stamp impressed her. For the simple souls of France, there is magic in papier-tendres. It was my husband who wrote this, she asked curiously. May we, said Aristide, with an offended air of challenge? Floret's eyes filled again with tears. I only inquired, she said, because this is the first time I've seen his handwriting. Ma pauvre petite, said Aristide. I will do whatever you tell me, Monsieur Pujol, said Floret humbly. Good, that is talking like une bonne petite dame rais en abla. Now, I know a woman, and made up of holy bread, whom St. Peter and St. Paul are fighting to have next them, when she goes to paradise. Her name is Madame Bidou, and she sells cabbages and asparagus and charcoal at number 213, Bisse, Rousse, and Anna Rae. She will arrange our little affair. Boca d'Or, will you have Madame's trunks sent to that address? He gave his arm to Floret, and walked out of the hotel with serene confidence in the powers of the saint de Madame Bidou. Floret accompanied him unquestioningly. Of course, she might have said, if you hold negotiable security from my husband to the amount of 4000 francs, why should I exchange the comforts of the hotel for the doubtful accommodation of the saint de Madame Bidou, who sells cabbages? But I repeat that Floret was a simple soul who took for granted the wisdom of so flamboyant and virulent creature as Aristide Pujol. A way up at the top of number 213, Bisse, Rousse, and Anna Rae, was a little furnished room to let, and there Aristide installed his sacred charge. Madame Bidou, who, as she herself maintained, would have cut herself into four pieces for Aristide, did he not save her dog's life? Did he not marry her daughter to the brigadier Jean-Dame Salle-Avoyu, who would otherwise have left her lamenting? Was he not the most wonderful of God's creatures? Madame Bidou, although not quite appreciating Aristide's quixotic delicacy, took the forlorn and fragile wisp of misery to her capacious bosom. She made her free of the cabbages and charcoal. She provided her at a reasonable charge with succulent meals. She told her tales of her father and mother, of her neighbors, of the domestic differences between the concierge and his wife, soothing Eidl for an Ariadne, of the dirty thief of a brigadier Jean-Dame, of her bodily ailments, her body was so large that they were many, of the picturesque death through apoplexy of the late Monsieur Bidou, the brave woman, in short, gave her of her heart's best. As far as human hearts could provide a bed for floret, that bed was of roses. As a matter of brutal fact, it was narrow and nubby, and the little uncarpeted room was ten feet by seven. But to provide it, Aristide went to his own bed hungry, and if the bed of a man's hunger is not to be accounted as one of roses, there ought to be a vote for the reduction of the recording angel's salary. It must not be imagined that floret thought the bed hard. Her bed of life from childhood had been nubby, she never dreamed of complaining of her little room under the stars, and she sat among the cabbages like a tired lily, quite contented with her material lot. But she drooped and drooped, and the cough returned and shook her, and Aristide, realizing the sacredness of his charge, became a prey to anxious terrors. Mare Bidou said he, she must have lots of good, nourishing, tender, underdone beef, good filets, and entrecote sangante. Madame Bidou sighed, she had a heart, but she also had a pocket, which, like Aristides, was not overfilled. That cost dear, my poor friend, she said. What does it matter what it cost? It is I who provide, said Aristide grandly. And Aristide gave up tobacco and coffee and the mild refreshment at cafes, essential to the existence of every Frenchman, and degraded his soul by taking half-frank tips from tourists, a source of income, which, as a director, Michel le Directeur, her director of the agence appoujour, he had hitherto scorned heartily, in order to provide floret with underdone beef steaks. All his leisure he devoted to her, she represented something that hitherto had not come into his life, something delicate, tender, ethereal, something of woman that was exquisitely adorable apart from the flesh. Once, as he was sitting in the little shop, she touched his temple lightly with her fingers. Ah, you are good to me, Aristide. He felt a thrill such as no woman's touch had ever caused to pass through him, far, far sweeter, cleaner, purer. If the bon Dieu could have given her to him then and there to be his wife, what bond would have been holier. But he had bound himself by his sacred obligation. His friend on his return should find him loyal. Who could help being good to you, little floret, said he, even an Apache would not tread on a lily of the valley. But you put me in water and tend me so carefully, so that you can be fresh whenever the dear Reginald comes back. She sighed, Tell me what I can do for you, my good Aristide. Keep well and happy and to be a valiant little woman, said he. Floret tried hard to be valiant, but the effort exhausted her strength. As the days went on, even Aristide's inexhaustible conversation failed to distract her from brooding. She lost the trick of laughter. In the evenings, when he was most with her, she would sit, either in the shop or in the little room at the back, her blue childish eyes fixed on him wistfully. At first he tried to lure her into the gay street, but walking tired her. He encouraged her to sit outside on the pavement of the ruse en arrêt and join with Madame Bidoux in the Gossip of Neighbours, but she listened to them with uncomprehending ears. In despair, Aristide, to coax a smile from her lips, practiced his many queer accomplishments. He conjured with cards. He juggled with oranges. He had a Montabank's trick of putting one leg round his neck. He imitated the voices of cats and pigs and ducks till Madame Bidoux held her sides with mirth. He spent time and thought in elaborating what he called bonfos, such as dressing himself up in Madame Bidoux's raiment and personifying a crabbed customer. Florette smiled but listlessly at all these comicalities. One day she was taken ill. A doctor, summoned, said many learned words which Aristide and Madame Bidoux tried hard to understand. But after all, what is the matter with her? She has no strength to struggle. She wants happiness. Can you tell me the druggist where that can be procured? Ask Aristide. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. I tell you the truth. It is one of those pulmonary cases. Happy she will live. Unhappy she will die. My poor Madame Bidoux, what is to be done? Asked Aristide. After the doctor had gone off with his modest fee, how are we to make her happy? If only she could have news of her husband, replied Madame Bidoux. Aristide's anxieties grew heavier. It was November when niggerbockered and culture-seeking tourist no longer filled the cheap hotels of Paris. The profits of the agence of bourgeois dwindled. Aristide lived on bread and cheese and foresaw the time when cheese would be a sinful luxury. Meanwhile, Florette had her nourishing food and grew more like the ghost of a lily every day. But her eyes followed Aristide wherever he went in her presence as if he were the god of her salvation. One day, Aristide, with an unexpected franker to in his pocket, stopped in front of a bureau de tabac, a brown packet of copperol and a book of cigarette papers, a cigarette rolled, how good it would be. He hesitated, and his glance fell on a collection of foreign stamps exposed in the window. Among them were twelve Honduras stamps, all post-marked. He stared at them, fascinated. If the bon Dieu does not send you these vibrating inspirations, it is because you yourself have already conceived them. He entered the shop and emerged, not with copperol and cigarette papers, but with the twelve Honduras stamps. That night he sat up in his little bedroom at number two, one, three, bis, ruse, and an array, until his candle failed, inditing a letter in English to Florette. At the head of his paper he wrote, Hotel Rosario Honduras, and at the end of the letter he signed the name of Reginald Batterby. Where Honduras was he had but a vague idea. For Florette at any rate it would be somewhere at the other end of the world, and she would not question any want of accuracy in local detail. Just before the light went out he read the letter through with great pride. Batterby, alluded to the many letters he had posted from remote parts of the globe, gave a glowing forecast of the fortune that Honduras had in store for him, reminded her that he had placed sufficient funds for her maintenance in the hands of Aristide Pujol, and assured her that the time was not far off when she would be summoned to join her devoted husband. Madame Bidou was right, said he, before going to sleep, this is the only way to make her happy. The next day Florette received the letter, the envelope or the postmarked Honduras stamp. It had been rubbed on the dusty pavement to take off the newness. It was in her husband's handwriting. There was no mistake about it. It was a letter from Honduras. Are you happier now, little doubting female Saint Thomas that you are? cried Aristide when she told him the news. She smiled at him out of grateful eyes and touched his hand. Much happier, mon bon ami, she said gently. Later in the day she handed him a letter addressed to Batterby. It had no stamp. Will you post this for me, Aristide? Aristide put the letter in his pocket and turned sharply away, lest she should see a sudden rush of tears. He had not counted on this innocent trustfulness. He went to his room. The poor little letter. He had not the heart to destroy it. No, he would keep it till Batterby came. It was not his to destroy. So he threw it into a drawer. Having once begun the deception, however, he thought it necessary to continue. Every week, therefore, he invented a letter from Batterby. To interest her, he drew upon his proven sol imagination. He described combats with crocodiles, lion hunts, feasts with terrific savages from the interior, who brought their lady-wise, chastely clad and petticoats made out of human teeth. He drew pictures of the town, a kind of palm-shaded Paris by the sea, where one ate hortelon and oysters as a big of soup plates, and where Chinaman with pigtails wrote about the streets on camels. It was not a correct description of Honduras, but all the same, an exotic atmosphere, stimulating and captivating, rose from the pages. With this it was necessary to combine expressions of affection. At first it was difficult. Essential delicacy restrained him. He had also, to keep in mind, Batterby's vernacular. To address floret, impalpable creation of fairyland as old girl, was particularly distasteful. By degrees, however, the artist prevailed, and then at last the man himself took to forgetting the imaginary writer and poured out words of love, warm, true, and passionate. And every week floret would smile and tell him the wondrous news, and would put into his hands an unstamped letter to post, which he, with a wrench of the heart, would add to the collection in the drawer. Once she said diffidently, with an unwanted blush and her pale blue eyes swimming, ah, right, English so badly, won't you read the letter and correct my mistakes? But Aristide laughed and licked the flap of the envelope and closed it. What has love to do with spelling and grammar? The good Reginald would prefer your bad English to all the turned phrases of the Académie Française. It is as you like, Aristide said, floret, with wistful eye. Yet in spite of the weekly letters, floret continued to droop. The winter came, and floret was no longer able to stay among the cabbages of Madame Bidoux. She lay on her bed in the little room, ten feet by seven, away, away at the top of the house, in the rue Saint-Honorlet. The doctor, informed of her comparative happiness, again shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing more to be done. She is dying, Miss Sure, for want of strength to live. Then Aristide went about with a great heartache. Floret would die. She would never see the man she loved again. What would he say when he returned and learned the tragic story? He would not even know that Aristide, loving her, had been loyal to him. When the director of the Agence Bourjol personally conducted the clients of the Hotel du Soleil de l'Écosse to the Grand Trionnant and pointed out the bed of the Empress Josephine, he nearly broke down. What is the Empress doing now? What was Floret doing now? Going to join the Empress in the world of shadows. The tourist talked after the manner of their kind. She must have found the bed very hard, poor dear. Give me an iron bedstead and a good old spring mattress. Ah, but my dear sir, you forget! The Empress's bed was slung on the back of tame panthers, which Napoleon brought from Egypt. It was hard to jest convincingly to the knicker-bockered with death in one soul. Most beloved little flower ran the last letter that Floret received. I have just had a cable from Aristide, saying that you are very ill. I will come to you as soon as I can. C'est petit, je te prévoins. I am learning your language here, you see. Haunt me day and night, etc., etc. Aristide went up to her room with a great bunch of chrysanthemums. The letter peeped from under the pillow. Floret was very weak. Madame Bidoux, who during Floret's illness had allowed her green grocery business to be personally conducted to the deuce by a youth of sixteen, very much in love with the lady who sold sausages and other charcuterie next door, had spread out the fortune-telling cards on the bed and was prophesying mendaciously. Floret took the flowers and clasped them to her bosom. No letter for C'est chez régional? She shook her head. I can write no more, she whispered. She closed her eyes. Presently she said in a low voice, Aristide, if you kiss me, I think I can go to sleep. He bent down to kiss her forehead. A fragile arm twined itself about his neck, and he kissed her on the lips. She is sleeping, said Madame Bidoux after a while. Aristide tiptoed out of the room. And so died Floret. Aristide borrowed money from the kindhearted Bocardon for a beautiful funeral, and Madame Bidoux and Bocardon and a few neighbors and himself saw her laid to rest. When they got back to the ruse and honoree, he told Madame Bidoux about the letters. She wept and clasped him, weeping too, in her kind, fat, old arms. The next evening Aristide, coming back from his day's work at the Hotel du Soleil de l'Écosse, was confronted in the shop by Madame Bidoux, hands on broad hips. Tiens mon petit, she said, without preliminary greeting, you are an angel, but that a man's an angel is no reason for his being an imbecile. Read this. She plucked a paper from her apron pocket and thrust it into his hand. He read it and blinked in amazement. Where did you get this, Madame Bidoux? Where I got many more in your drawer. The letters you were saving for this infamous scoundrel. I wanted to know what she had written to him. Madame Bidoux, cried Aristide, those letters were sacred. Bah! said Madame Bidoux unabashed. There is nothing sacred to a sapper or an old grandmother who loves an imbecile. I have read the letters. Et voila, et voila, et voila! And she emptied her pockets of all the letters, minus the envelopes that Florette had written. And after one swift glance at the first letter, Aristide had no compunction in reading. They were all addressed to himself. They were very short, ill-written, in a poor little uncultivated hand. But they all contained one message, that of her love for Aristide. Whatever illusion she may have had concerning batterby had soon vanished. She knew with the unerring instinct of woman that he had betrayed and deserted her. Aristide's pious fraud had never deceived her for a second. Too gentle, too timid to let him know what was in her heart, she had written the secret patiently week after week, hoping every time that curiosity or pity or something, she knew not what, would induce him to open the idle letter and wondering in her simple peasant soul at the delicacy that caused him to refrain. Once she had boldly given him the envelope unclosed. She died for want of love par bleu, said Aristide, and there was mine quivering in my heart and trembling on my lips all the time. She had des jeux de pevance, un nom de chien. It is only with me that Providence plays such tricks. He walked to the window and looked out into the grey street. Presently I heard him murmuring the words of the old French song, Elimo en faivret pauvre colonnette. End of chapter 6