 Chapter 3 of the Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol by William John Locke. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 The Adventure of the Kind Mr. Smith Aristide Pujol started life on his own account as a chasseur in a nice café, one of those luckless children tightly encased in bottle-green cloth by means of brass buttons, who earn a sketchy livelihood by enduring with cherubic smiles the continuous maledictions of the establishment. There he soothed his hours of servitude by dreams of vast ambitions. He would become the manager of a great hotel, not a contemptible hostelry, where commercial travellers and seedy Germans were indifferently bedded, but one of those white palaces where milords, English and millionaires, American, paid a thousand francs a night for a bedroom and five louis for a glass of beer. Now in order to derive such profit from the Anglo-Saxon, a knowledge of English was indispensable. He resolved to learn the language. How he did so, except by sheer effrontery, taking linguistic toll of frequenters of the café, would be a mystery to anyone unacquainted with Aristide. But to his friends, his mastery of the English tongue in such circumstances is comprehensible. To Aristide the impossible was ever the one thing easy of attainment. The possible, the one thing he never could achieve. That was the paradoxical nature of the man. Before his days of hunted little devildom were over, he had acquired sufficient knowledge of English to carry him, a few years later, through various vicissitudes in England, until, fired by new social ambitions and self-educated in a haphazard way, he found himself appointed Professor of French in an Academy for young ladies. One of these days, when I can pin my dragonfly friend down to a plain unvarnished autobiography, I may be able to trace some chronological sequence in the kaleidoscopic changes in his career. But hitherto, in his talks with me, he flits about from any one date to any other during a couple of decades in a manner so confusing that for the present I abandon such an attempt. All I know of the date of the episode I am about to chronicle is that it occurred immediately after the termination of his engagement at the Academy just mentioned. Somehow Aristides' history is a category of terminations. If the headmistress of the Academy had herself played dragon at his classes, all would have gone well. He would have made his pupils conjugate irregular verbs, rendered them adepts in the mysteries of the past participle and the subjunctive mood, and turned them out quite innocent of the idiomatic quaintness of the French tongue. But d'es à l'étard visu, the gods always saw wrong-headedly otherwise, in the case of Aristides, a weak-minded governess, and in a governess a sense of humor and of novelty, is always a sign of a weak mind, played dragon during Aristides' lessons. She appreciated his method, which was colloquial. The colloquial Aristides was jocular. His lessons, therefore, were a giggling joy from beginning to end. He imparted to his pupils delicious knowledge. On a vivu des zoomades, au les albettes, elles ont du wile aux spates, which, being translated is, have you any lobsters? Oh, the dirty animals, they have hair on their feet! A catchphrase, which some years ago added greatly to the gaiety of Paris, but in which I must confess to seeing no gleam of width, became the historic property of the school. He recited to them, till they were word-perfect, a music called Diddy of the early eighties, sur le bî, sur le banc, sur le bî du bout du banc, and delighted them with dissertations on Madame Yvette Guillebère's earlier repertoire. But for him they would have gone to their lives end without knowing that Pognon meant money, Rousse-Pétance assaulting the police, d'une affaire franc-bise, and buffet to make nourishment. He made, according to his own statement, French a living language. There was never a school in Great Britain, the colonies or America, on which the Parisian accent was so electrically impressed. The retort, eh, Taussier, was the purest moment, also fichement, la paix, mon petit, and tu es en tout paix, toi, and the delectable locution, allons cet anglais en perquets. Let us strangle the parrot. And by apaches, when inviting each other to drink a glass of absent, soon became current French in the school for invitations to surreptitious cocoa parties. The progress that academy made in a real grip of the French language was miraculous, but the knowledge it gained in French grammar and syntax was deplorable. A certain midterm examination, the paper being set by a neighbouring vicar, produced awful results. The phrase, how do you do, dear, which ought, by all the rules of Stratford, Art of War, to be translated by, comment vous portez-vous, ma cher, was rendered by most of the senior scholars, eh, ma vieille sa bouillote. One innocent and anachronistic damsel, writing on the execution of Charles I, declared that he crushard en la paignée in 1649, thereby mystifying the good vicar who was unaware that to spit into the basket is to be guillotined. This wealth of vocabulary was discounted by abject poverty in other branches of the language. No one could give a list of the words in Ile that took S in the plural. No one knew anything at all about the defective verb échoir, and the orthography of the school would have disgraced a kindergarten. The headmistress suspected a lack of method in the teaching of Monsieur Poujol, and one day paid his class a surprise visit. The sight that met her eyes petrified her. The class, including the governess, bubbled and gurgled and shrieked with laughter. Monsieur Poujol, his bright eyes, a gleam with merriment, and his arms moving in frantic gestures, danced about the platform. He was telling them a story, and when Aristide told a story, he told it with the eloquence of his entire frame. He bent himself double and threw out his hands. Il était sa oulle comme en poc, he shouted, and then came the hush of death. The rest of the artless tale about the man as drunk as a pig was never told. The headmistress, indignant majesty, strode up the room. Monsieur Poujol, you have a strange way of giving French lessons. I believe Madame, said he with a polite bow, in interesting my pupils and their studies. Pupils have to be taught, not interested, said the headmistress. Though you kindly put the class through some irregular verbs. So for the remainder of the lesson, Aristide, under the freezing eyes of the headmistress, put his sorrowful class through irregular verbs, of which his own knowledge was singularly inexact, and at the end received his dismissal. In vain, he argued, outraged Minerva was implacable, go he must. He fined him then one miserable December evening, standing on the arrival platform of Euston Station. The academy was near Manchester, an unwanted statue of dubiety. At his feet lay his meager valise, and his hand was an enormous bouquet, a useful tribute of esteem from his disconsolate pupils. Around him luggage-laden porters and passengers hurried. In front were drawn up the long line of cabs, their drivers waterproof glistening with wet, and in his pocket rattled the few paltry coins that, for heaven knew how long, were to keep him from starvation. Should he commit the extravagance of taking a cab, or should he go forth a valise in hand into the boring rain? He hesitated. Sacre mille cochons, quel chien de clément? He muttered. A smart footman, standing by, turned quickly and touched his hat. Big pardon, sir, I'm from Mr. Smith. Oh, I'm glad to hear it, my friend, said Aristide. You're the French gentleman from Manchester? Decidedly, said Aristide. Then, sir, Mr. Smith has sent the carriage for you. That's very kind of him, said Aristide. The footman picked up the valise and darted down the platform. Aristide followed. The man held invitingly open the door of a cozy broam. Aristide paused for the fraction of a second. Who was this hospitable Mr. Smith? Bah! He said to himself, the best way of finding out is to go and see. He entered the carriage, sank back luxuriously on the soft cushions, and inhaled the warm smell of leather. They started, and soon the pelting rain beat harmlessly against the windows. Aristide looked out at the streaming streets, and, hugging himself comfortably, thanked Providence and Mr. Smith. But who was Mr. Smith? Tien thought he there were two little Miss Smiths at the academy. He had pitied them because they had chill-blanes, freckles, and perpetual coals in their heads. Possibly this was their kind papa. But after all, what did it matter whose papa he was? He was expecting him. He had sent the carriage for him. Evidently a well-bred and attentive person. Eh! Tien! There was even a hot water can on the floor of the broam. He thinks of everything. That man, said Aristide, I feel I'm going to like him. The carriage stopped at a house in Hampstead, standing as far as he could see in the darkness in its own grounds. The footmen opened the door for him to a light and escorted him up the front steps. A neat parlor maid received him in a comfortably furnished hall, and took his hand in great coat and magnificent bouquet. Mr. Smith hasn't come back yet from the city, sir, but Miss Cristobal is in the drawing-room. Ah! said Aristide, please give me back my bouquet. The maid showed him into the drawing-room. A pretty girl of three and twenty rose from a fender-stool and advanced smilingly to meet him. Good afternoon, Monsieur Le Baron. I was wondering whether Thomas would spot you. I'm so glad he did. You see, an either father nor I could give him any description, for we had never seen you. This fitted in with his theory. But why Baron? After all, why not? The English loved titles. He seems to be an intelligent fellow, mademoiselle. There was a span of silence. The girl looked at the bouquet, then at Aristide, who looked at the girl, then at the bouquet, then at the girl again. Mademoiselle said he, will you deign to accept these flowers as a token of my respectful homage? Miss Cristobal took the flowers and blushed prettily. She had dark hair and eyes and a fascinating upturned little nose and the kindest little mouth in the world. An Englishman would not have thought of that, she said. Aristide smiled in his roguish way and raised a deprecating hand. Oh yes he would, but he would not have had what you call the cheek to do it. Miss Cristobal laughed merrily, invited him to a seat by the fire, and comforted him with tea and hot muffins. The frank charm of his girl hostess captivated Aristide and drove from his mind the riddle of his adventure. Besides, think of the Arabian knight's enchantment of the change from his lonely and shabby bed-sitting room in the Rochon Road to this fragrant palace with princess and all to keep him company. He watched the firelight dancing through her hair, the deity play of laughter over her face, and decided that the brolem had transported him to Baghdad instead of Hampstead. You have the air of a veritable princess, said he. I once met a princess at a charity bazaar, and she was a most matter-of-fact business-like person. Ah, said Aristide, a princess of a charity bazaar? I was talking of the princess in a fairy tale. They are the only real ones. Do you know, said to Miss Christabel, that when men pay such compliments to English girls, they are apt to get laughed at? Englishmen, yes, replied Aristide, because they think over a compliment for a week, so that by the time they pay it, it is addled like a bad egg. But we of Provence pay tribute to beauty straight out of our hearts. It is true, it is sincere, and what comes out of the heart is not ridiculous. Again, the girl collared and laughed, I've always heard that a Frenchman makes love to every woman he meets. Naturally, said Aristide, if they are pretty, what else are pretty women for? Otherwise, they might as well be hideous. Oh, said the girl, to whom this Provence all point of view had not occurred. So if I make love to you, it is but your due. I wonder what my fiance would say if he heard you. My fiance, there's his photograph on the table beside you. He is six-foot-one, and so jealous, she laughed again. That Turk, cried Aristide, his swiftly conceived romance crumbling into dust. Then he brightened up. But when this six-feet of muscle and the egotism is absent, surely other poor mortals can glean a smile? You will observe that I'm not frowning, said Miss Cristobal, but you must not call my fiance a Turk, for he's a very charming fellow whom I hope you'll like very much. Aristide sighed, and the name of this thrice-blessed mortal. Miss Cristobal told his name, one Harry Ralston, and not only his name, but such was the peculiar childlike charm of Aristide Pujol, also many other things about him. He was the honourable Harry Ralston, the heir to a great brewery, peerage, and very wealthy. He was a member of parliament, and, but for parliamentary duties, would have dined there that evening, but he was to come in later, as soon as he could leave the house. He also had a house in Hampshire, full of the most beautiful works of art. It was through their common hobby that her father and Harry had first made acquaintance. We're supposed to have a very fine collection here, she said, with a motion of her hand. Aristide looked round the walls and saw them hung with pictures in gold frames. In those days he had not acquired an extensive culture. Besides, who, having before him, the fire-light gleaming through Miss Cristobal's hair could waste his time over painted canvas? She noted his cursory glance. I thought you were a connoisseur. I am, said Aristide, his bright eyes fixed on her, in frank admiration. She blushed again, but this time she rose. I must go and dress for dinner. Perhaps she would like to be shown your room? He hung his head on one side. Have I been too bold, mademoiselle? I don't know, she said. You see, I've never met a Frenchman before. A world of undreamed-of homage is at your feet, said he. A servant ushered him up broad carpeted staircases into a bedroom such as he had never seen in his life before. It was all curtains and hangings and rugs and soft couches and satin quilts and dainty writing-tables and subdued lights and a great fire glowed red and cheerful and before it hung a clean shirt. His poor little toilette apparatus was laid on the dressing-table and with a tact which he did not appreciate, for he had, sad to tell, no dress suit. The servant had spread his precious frock coat and spare pair of trousers on the bed. On the pillow lay his night-shirt neatly folded. Evidently, said Aristide, impressed by these preparations, it is expected that I wash myself now and change my clothes and that I sleep here for the night. And for all that the ravishing Miss Cristobal is engaged to her honorable Harry, this is nonetheless a corner of paradise. So Aristide attired himself in his best, which included a white tie in a pair of nearly new brown boots, a long tass as he found that his valise had been spirited away and its contents, including the white tie of ceremony he had but one, hidden in unexpected drawers and wardrobes, and eventually went downstairs into the drawing-room. There he found Miss Cristobal and, warming himself on the hearth-brug, a bald-headed, beefy-faced Briton with little pig-seyes and a hearty manner attired in a dinner-suit. My dear fellow, said to this personage, with outstretched hand, I'm delighted to have you here. I've heard so much about you, and my little girl has been singing your praises. Madam Azele is too kind, said Aristide. You must take us, as you find us, said Mr. Smith, we're just ordinary folk, but I can give you a good bottle of wine and a good cigar. It's only in England, you know, that you can get champagne fit to drink and cigars fit to smoke, and I can give you a glimpse of a modest English home. I believe you haven't a word for it in French. Maffois, no, said Aristide, who had once or twice before heard this lunatic charge brought against his country. In France, the men all live in cafes, the children are all put out to nurse, and the women, saving the respect of Madame Azele, well, the less said about them, the better. And is the only place, isn't it, Mr. Smith declared heartily. I don't say that Paris hasn't its points, but after all, the Moulin Rouge and the Fouley Beger, and that sort of thing, soon Paul, you know, soon Paul. Yet Paris has its serious side, replied Aristide. There's always the tomb of Napoleon. Papa will never take me to Paris, said the girl. You shall go there on your honeymoon, said Mr. Smith. Aristide gave his arm to Miss Christabel and, proud not only of his partner, but also of his frock coat, quite tie and shiny brown boots, strutted into the dining room. The host sat at the end of the beautifully set table, his daughter on his right, Aristide on his left. The meal began gaily. The kind Mr. Smith was in the best of humours. And how is our dear old friend, Jules d'Encourt? He asked. Tien, said Aristide to himself, we have a dear friend, Jules d'Encourt. Wonderfully well, he replied, at a venture, but he suffers terribly at times from the gout. So do I, confounded, said Mr. Smith, drinking sherry. You and the good Jules were always sympathetic, said Aristide, ah, he has spoken to me so often about you, the tears in his eyes. Men cry, my dear, in France, Mr. Smith explained. They also kiss each other. Ah, mes septum pour pays mademoiselle, cried Aristide, and he began to talk of France and to draw pictures of his country, which set the girl's eyes dancing. After that he told some of the funny little stories which had brought him disaster at the academy. Mr. Smith, with jovial magnanimity, declared that he was the first Frenchman he'd ever met with a sense of humour. But I thought about all, said he, that you lived all your life shut up in that old chateau of yours. Tien, thought Aristide, I'm still about all, and I have an old chateau. Tell us about the chateau. Has it a faucet and a drawbridge and a gothic chapel, asked Miss Christabel? Which one do you mean, inquired Aristide eerily, for I have, too. When relating to me this Arabian night's adventure, he drew my special attention to his astuteness. His host's eye quivered in a wink. The wine in Languedoc said he, Languedoc, almost Fijol's own country. With entire lack of morality, but with picturesque imagination, Aristide plunged into a description of that non-existent baronial hall. Foss, drawbridge, gothic chapel, were but insignificant features. It had tares, emblazoned gateways, bas-jeans, donjons, barbecans. It had innumerable rooms, and the sale des chevaliers, 200-minute arms, had his ancestors fed at a sitting. There was the room in which Francois Premier had slept, and one in which Joan of Arc had almost been assassinated. What the name of himself or of his ancestors was supposed to be, Aristide had no ghost of an idea, but as he proceeded with the erection of his ferry-palace, he gradually began to believe in it. He invested the place with a living atmosphere, conjured up a staff of family retainers, notably Juan Amarijosef Lovefuck, the wizened old Major Domo, with his long white whiskers and blue and silver livery. There was also Madeleine Mule, the cook, and Bernadette, the groom, and Lapetite Frippette, the goose-girl. Ah, they should see Lapetite Frippette, and he kept dogs and horses and cows and ducks and hens, and there was a great pawn whence frogs were drawn to be fed for the consumption of the household. Miss Christabel shivered, I should not like to eat frogs. They also eat snails, said her father. I have a snail-farm, said Aristide. You never saw such interesting little animals. They are so intelligent. If you're kind to them, they come and eat out of your hand. You've forgotten the pictures, said Mr. Smith. Ah, the pictures, cried Aristide, with a wide sweep of his arms, galleries full of them, Raphael, Michelangelo, Beards, Reynolds. He paused, not in order to produce the effect of a dramatic apesia-pieces, but because he could not for the moment remember other names of painters. It is a truly historical chateau, said he. Oh, I should love to see it, said the girl. Aristide threw out his arms across the table. It is yours, mademoiselle, for your honeymoon, said he. Dinner came to an end. Miss Christabel left the gentleman to their wine, an excellent port, whose English qualities were vaunted by the host. Aristide, full of food and drink, and the mellow glories of the castle in Languedoc, and smoking an enormous cigar, felt at ease with all the world. He knew he should like the kind Mr. Smith, hospitable, though somewhat insular man. He could stay with him for a week, or a month. Why not a year? After coffee and liqueurs had been served, Mr. Smith rose and switched on a powerful electric light at the end of the large room, showing a picture on an easel covered by a curtain. He back unto Aristide to join him, and drawing the curtain, disclosed the picture. There, he said, isn't it a stunner? It was a picture, all grey skies and grey water and grey feathery trees, and a little man in the foreground wore a red cap. It is beautiful, but indeed it is magnificent, cried Aristide, always impressionable to things of beauty. Genuine carot, isn't it? Without doubt, said Aristide. His host poked him in the ribs. I thought I'd astonish you. You wouldn't believe Gotshark could have done it. There it is, as large as life and twice as natural. If you or anyone else can tell it from a genuine carot, I'll eat my at, and all for eight pounds. Aristide looked at the beefy face, and caught a look of cunning in the little pig's eyes. Now, you're satisfied, asked Mr. Smith. More than satisfied, said Aristide, though what he was to be satisfied about passed for the moment his comprehension. If it was a copy of an existing picture, you know, one might have understood it, that, of course, would be dangerous, but for a man to go and get bits out of various carots, and stick them together like this, is miraculous. If it hadn't been for a matter of business principle, I'd have given the fellow eight guineas instead of pounds. Hanged, if I wouldn't. He deserves it. He does, indeed, said Aristide de Pujol. And now that you've seen it with your own eyes, what do you think you might ask me for it? I suggested that something between two and three thousand, shall we say three? For the owner, you know. Again the process of rib-dicking came out of that historic chateau of yours. My eye, you're a holy terror when you begin to talk. You almost persuaded me it was real, said Aristide de Pujol. I don't seem to have a chateau after all. Certainly three thousand, said he, with a grave face. That young man thinks he knows a lot, but he doesn't, said Mr. Smith. Ah, said Aristide de Pujol, with singular laconicism. Not a bloomin' thing, continued his host, but he'll pay three thousand, which is the principle, isn't it? He's a partner in the show, you know. Ralston Wiggins and Wicks' Brewery. Aristide pricked up his ears. And when his daughtering old father dies, he'll be Lord Ronley and come into a million of money. Has he seen the picture, asked Aristide de Pujol? Oh, yes, regards it as a masterpiece. Didn't Brownenberger tell you of the lacquerie we planted on the American? Mr. Smith rubbed hearty hands at the memory of the iniquity. Same old game, always easy. I have nothing to do with the bargaining or the sale. Just an old friend of the ruined French nobleman with the historic chateau and family treasures. He comes along and fixes the price. I told our friend Harry, oh, good, thought Aristide. This is the same honorable Harry, MP, who is engaged to the ravishing Miss Cristobal. I told him, said Mr. Smith, that it might come to three or four thousand. He jibbed a bit, so when I wrote to you I said two or three. But you might try him with three to begin with. Aristide went back to the table and poured himself out a fresh glass of his kind host's 1865 brandy and drank it off. Exquisite, my dear fellow, said he, I've none finer in my historic chateau. Don't suppose you have, grinned the host, joining him. He slapped him on the back. Well, said he, with a shifty look in his little pig's eyes, let us talk business. What do you think would be your fair commission? You see, all the trouble and invention have been mine. What do you say to four hundred pounds? Five, said Aristide promptly. A sudden gleam came into the little pig's eyes. Don, said Mr. Smith, who had imagined that the other would demand a thousand, and was prepared to pay eight hundred. Don, said he again. They shook hands to seal the bargain and drank another glass of old brandy. At that moment a servant, entering, took the host aside. Please excuse me a moment, said he, and went with the servant out of the room. Aristide left alone, lighted another one of his kind host's fat cigars, and threw himself into a great leather and armchair by the fire, and surrendered himself, deliciously, to the soothing charm of the moment. Now and then he laughed, finding a certain comicality in his position, and who had a charming father-in-law this kind, Mr. Smith. His cheerful reflections were soon disturbed by the sudden the eruption of his host, and a grizzled, elderly, foxy faced gentleman, with a white moustache, wearing the ribbon of the Legion of Honor in the buttonhole of his overcoat. Here you are, cried the kind Mr. Smith, striding up to Aristide with a very red face. Will you have the kindness to tell me who the devil you are? Aristide rose, and, putting his hands behind the tails of his frockcoat, stood smiling radiantly at the hearth rug. A wit much less alert than my irresponsible friends would have instantly appreciated the fact that the real Simon Pure had arrived on the scene. I, my dear friend, said he, am the Baron de Jeanne-Saint-Pleu. You're a confounded imposter, splittered Mr. Smith, and this gentleman here, to whom I have not had the pleasure of being introduced, asked Aristide Blanley, I am Mr. Poirons, the agent of measures, Rauenberger and Campagnu, art dealers of the Rune Autredome, des petits champs of Paris, said the newcomer, with an air of defiance. Ah, I thought you were the Baron, said Aristide. There's no blumen Baron at all about it, screamed Mr. Smith. Are you Poirons, or is he? I would not have a name like Poirons for anything in the world, said Aristide. My name is Aristide Pujol, soldier of fortune, at your service. How the blazes did you get here? Your servant asked me if I was a French gentleman from Manchester. I was. He said that Mr. Smith had sent his carriage for me. I thought it hospitable of the kind of Mr. Smith. I entered the carriage, et voila. Then clear out of here this very minute, said Mr. Smith, reaching forward his hand to the bell push. Aristide checked his impulsive action. Pardon me, dear host, said he. It is raining dogs and cats outside. I am very comfortable in your luxurious home. I am here, and here I stay. I'm shot if you do, said the kind Mr. Smith, his face growing redder and uglier. Now, will you go out, or will you be thrown out? Aristide, who had no desire whatever to be ejected from this snug mess into the welter of the wet and friendless world, puffed at his cigar, and looked at his host with the irresistible drollery of his eyes. You forget, my cher ami, said he, that neither the beautiful Miss Cristobal, nor her op theanced The Honorable Harry MP, would care to know that the talented Gottschalk got only eight pounds, not even guineas, for painting that 3,000-pound picture. So it's blackmail, eh? Precisely, said Aristide, and I don't blush at it. You infernal little blackguard. I seem to be in congenial company, said Aristide. I don't think our friend, Mr. Poirot, has more scruples than he has right to the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, which he is wearing. How much will you take to go out? I have a checkbook handy. Mr. Smith moved a few steps from the hearth rug. Aristide sat down in the armchair, and engaging fantastic impudence was one of the charms of Aristide Bougiot. I'll take 500 pounds, said he, to stay in. Stay in, Mr. Smith grew apoplectic. Yes, said Aristide, you can't do without me. Your daughter and your servants know me as Monsieur Le Baron. By the way, what is my name, and where is my historic château in Languedoc? Mireille, said Monsieur Poirot, who was sitting grim and taciturn on one of the dining room chairs, and the place is the same near Montpellier. I like to meet an intelligent man, said Aristide. I should like to ring your infernal neck, said the kind Mr. Smith. But by George, if we do let you in, you'll have to sign me a receipt implicating yourself up to the hilt. I'm not going to be put into the cart by you. You can bet your life. Well, anything you like, said Aristide, so long as we all swing together. Now, when Aristide Bougiot arrived at this point in his narrative, I, his chronicler, who am nothing if not an eminently respectable law abiding Briton, took him warmly to task for his sheer absence of moral sense. His eyes, as they sometimes did, assumed a luminous pathos. My dear friend, said he, have you ever faced the world in a foreign country in December with no character and 15 pounds, five enthruppants in your pocket? 500 pounds was a fortune. It is one now. And to be gained just by lending oneself to a good force, which didn't hurt anybody, you and your British morals, bah, said he, with a fine flourish. Aristide, after much paroling, was finally admitted into the nefarious brotherhood. He was to retain his rank as the Baron de Mireille and to play the part of the pecuniarily inconvenient snow-woman forced to sell some of his rare collection. Mr. Smith had heard of the carot through their dear old common friend, Jules d'Encourt-Orain, and had mentioned it alluringly to the honorable Harry, had arranged for the Baron, who was visiting England, to bring it over and dispatch it to Mr. Smith's house and on his return from Manchester to pay a visit to Mr. Smith so that he could meet the honorable Harry in person. In whatever transaction ensued, Mr. Smith, so far as his prospective son-in-law was concerned, was to be the purely disinterested friend. It was Aristide's wit which invented a part for the supplanted Monsieur Poirot. He should be the eminent Parisian expert, who, chanceing to be in London, had been telephoned for by the kind Mr. Smith. It would not be wise for Monsieur Poirot, said Aristide, chuckling inwardly with puckish glee, to stay here for the night, or for two or three days or a week, like myself. He must go back to his hotel when the business is concluded. Mais pas trop! cried Monsieur Poirot, who had been formally invited and had arrived late solely because he had missed his drain at Manchester and, come on, by the next one, I cannot go out into the wet and I have no hotel to go to. Aristide appealed to his host, ah, he is unreasonable, cher ami. He must play his role. Monsieur Poirot has been telephoned for. He can't possibly stay here. Surely 500 pounds is worth one little night of discomfort and there are a legion of hotels in London. 500 pounds, exclaimed Monsieur Poirot, qu'est-ce que c'est vous, chanté, là? I want more than 500 pounds. Then you're jolly well not going to get it, replied Mr. Smith in a rage, and as for you, he turned on Aristide, I'll ring your infernal neck yet. Calm yourself, calm yourself, smiled Aristide, who was enjoying himself hugely. At this moment the door opened and Miss Cristobal appeared. On seeing the decorated stranger, she started with a little, oh, of surprise. I beg your pardon. Mr. Smith's angry face wreathed itself and smiles. This, my darling, is a Monsieur Poirot, the eminent Paris expert, who has been good enough to come and give us his opinion on the picture. Monsieur Poirot bowed, Aristide advanced. Madame Azelle, your appearance is like a mirage in a desert. She smiled indulgently and turned to her father. I've been wondering what had become of you. Harry has been here for the last half hour. Bring him in, dear child, bring him in, said Mr. Smith, with all the heartiness of the fine old English gentleman. Our good friends are dying to meet him. The girl flickered out of the room like a sunbeam, the phrase is Aristides, and the three precious rascals put their heads together in a hurried and earnest colloquy. Presently, Miss Christabel returned, and with her came the honorable Harry Ralston, a tall soldierly fellow with close cropped, fair curly hair and a fair mustache and frank blue eyes that even in parliament had seen no harm in his fellow creatures. Aristides' magical vision caught him wincing ever so little at Mr. Smith's effusive greeting and overdone introductions. He shook Aristides warmly by the hand. You have a beauty there, Baron, a perfect beauty, said he, with the insane ingenuousness of youth. I wonder how you can manage to part with it. Mawfah said to Aristides with his back against the end of the dining table and gazing at the masterpiece. I have so many at the Chateau de Meret when one begins to collect, you know, and when once grandfather and father had had also the divine mania. You were saying, Monsieur Le Barron said to Monsieur Poirot of Paris that your respect to grandfather bought this direct from Corot himself. A commission, said Aristides. My grandfather was a patron of Corot. Do you like it, dear? asked the honorable Harry. Oh yes, replied the girl fervently. It is beautiful. I feel like Harry about it, she turned to Aristides. How can you part with it? Were you really an earnest when you said you would like me to come and see your collection? For me, said Aristides, it would be a visit of enchantment. You must take me then, she whispered to Harry. The Barron has been telling us about his lovely old Chateau. Will you come, Monsieur? asked Aristides. Since I'm going to rob you of your picture, said the young man with smiling courtesy, the least I can do is to pay you a visit of apology. Lovely, said he, going up to the Corot. Aristides took Miss Cristobal, now more bewitching than ever with the glow of young love in her eyes and a flush on her cheek, a step or two aside and whispered, but he is charming, your fiance. He almost deserves his good fortune. Why, almost, she laughed shyly. It's not a man but a demigod that would deserve you, mademoiselle. Monsieur Parron's harsh voice broke out. You see, it is painted in the beginning of Corot's later manner. It is 1864. There is the mystery which, when he was quite an old man, became a trick. If you were to put it up to auction at Cristie's, it would fetch, I am sure, 5,000 pounds. That's more than I can afford to give, said the young man with the laugh. Mr. Smith mentioned something between three and 4,000 pounds. I don't think I can go above three. I have nothing to do with it, my dear boy. Nothing, whatever, said Mr. Smith, rubbing his hands. You wanted a carot? I said, I thought I could put you on to one. It's for the barone here to mention his price. I retire now and forever. Well, Barron, said the young man cheerfully, what's your idea? Aristide came forward and resumed his place at the end of the table. The picture was in front of him beneath the strong electric light. On his left stood Mr. Smith and Parron. On his right, Ms. Christabel and the Honorable Harry. I'll not take 3,000 pounds for it, said Aristide. A picture like that? Never. I assure you it would be a fair price, said Barron. You mentioned that figure yourself only just now, said Mr. Smith, with an ugly glitter in his little pig's eyes. I presume, gentlemen, said Aristide, that this picture is my own property. He turned engagingly to his host. Is it not, Jeremy? Of course it is, who said it wasn't. And you, Mr. Parron, acknowledge formally that it is mine, he asked in French. Sans au compte d'eux, à bien, c'est d'Aristite, throwing open his arms and gazing round sweetly. I have changed my mind. I do not sell the picture at all. Not sell it? What do you mean, asked Mr. Smith, striving to mellow the gathering thunder on his brow? I do not sell, said Aristide. Listen, my dear friends, he was in the seventh heaven of happiness, the principal man, the star, taking the center of the stage. I have an announcement to make to you. I have fallen desperately in love with Madame Iselle. There was a general gasp. Mr. Smith looked at him, red-faced and open-mouthed. Miss Crisabelle blushed furiously and emitted a sound halfway between a laugh and a scream. Harry Ralston's eyes flashed. My dear sir, he began. Pardon, said Aristide, disarming him, with the merry splendor of his glance. I do not wish to take Madame Iselle from you. My love is hopeless. I know it, but it will feed me to my dying day. In return for the joy of this hopeless passion, I will not sell you the picture. I give it to you as a wedding present. He stood with the air of a hero, both arms extended toward the amazed pair of lovers. I give it to you, said he. It is mine. I have no wish, but for your happiness. In my chateau de meret, there are a hundred others. This is madness, said Mr. Smith, bursting with suppressed indignation, so that his bald head grew scarlet. My dear fellow, said to Mr. Harry Ralston, it is unheard of generosity on your part, but we can't accept it. Then, as said Aristide advancing dramatically to the picture, might take it under my arm. I put it in a handsome cab, and I go with it back to Languedoc. Mr. Smith caught him by the wrist and dragged him out of the room. You little brute, do you want your neck broken? Do you want the marriage of your daughter with the rich and honorable Harry broken? Ask Aristide. Oh, damn, damn, damn! cried Mr. Smith, stamping about helplessly and half weeping. Aristide entered the dining-room and beamed on the company. The kind Mr. Smith has consented, Mr. Honorable Harry and Miss Christabel. There is your carot. And now, may I be permitted? He rang the bell. A servant appeared. Some champagne to drink to the health of the fiancés, he cried, lots of champagne. Mr. Smith looked at him almost admiringly. By Jove, he muttered, you have got a nerve. Voila, said Aristide when he had finished the story. And did they accept the carot, I asked. Of course, it is hanging now in the big house in Hampshire. I stayed with a kind Mr. Smith for six weeks. He added, doubling himself up in his chair and hugging himself with Merck. And we became very good friends and I was at the wedding. And what about their honeymoon visit to Languedoc? Alas, said Aristide, the morning before the wedding I had a telegram, it was from my old father at Egmont to tell me that the historic Chateau de Meret with my priceless collection of pictures had been burned to the ground. End of chapter three. Chapter four of The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol by William John Locke. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter four, The Adventure of the Foundling. There was a time when Aristide Pujol and soul-charge of an automobile went gaily scuttering over the roads of France. I used the word advisedly. If you had heard the awful thing as it passed by, you would agree that it is the only word adequate to express its hideous mode of progression. It was a two-seated, scratched, battered, ramshackle tin concern of orientiquity belonging to the childhood of the race. Not only horses, but other automobiles, shied at it. It was a vehicle of derision. Yet Aristide regarded it with glowing pride and drove it with such daredevilry that the parts must have held together only through sheer, breathless wonder. Had it not been for the car, he told me, he would not have undertaken the undignified employment in which he was then engaged, the Montabanc selling of a corn cure in the public places of small towns and villages. It was not a fitting pursuit for a late managing director of a public company and an ex-professor of French in an English academy for young ladies. He wanted it to rise, mofoie, not descend in the social scale. But when hunger drives, a cub voulez-vous. Besides, there was the automobile. It is true he had bound himself by his contract to exhibit a board at the back bearing a flaming picture of the success of the cure and a legend. Qu'est-ce que vos corps? And to display a banner with the same device when weather permitted. But still there was the automobile. It had been lying for many motor ages in the shed of the proprietors of the cure. The Maison Eulpathe of Marseille neglected forlorn, eaten by rust and worm, when suddenly an idea occurred to their business imagination. Why should they not use the automobile to advertise and sell the cure about the country? The apostle in charge would pay for his own petrol, take a large percentage on sales, and the usual travellers' commission on orders that he might place. But where to find an apostle? Brave and a desperate man came in high hopes, looked at the car and shaking their heads sorrowfully, went away. At last at the leucist of ends came Aristide. The splendor of the idea, a poet in his way was Aristide, and the idea was the thing that always held him captive. The splendor of the idea of dashing up to hotels in his own automobile dazed him. He beheld himself doing his hundred kilometers an hour and trailing clouds of glory withersoever he went. To a child a moth-eaten rocking horse is a fiery Arab of the plains. To Aristide Bougel, this cheat of the scrapheap, was a sixty-horsepower thunderer and devourer of space. How they managed to botch up her interior so that she moved unpushed is a mystery which Aristide, not divining, could not reveal. And when and where he himself learned to drive a motor car is also big. I believe the knowledge came by nature. He was a fellow of many weird accomplishments. He could conjure, he could model birds and beasts out of breadcrumb, he could play the drum so well that he had a kettle drum hanging around his neck during most of his military service. He could make amulets and rabbit hutches. He could imitate any animal that ever emitted sound, a gift that endeared him to children. He could do almost anything you please, save, stay in one place, and acquire material possessions. The fact that he had never done a thing before was to him no proof of his inability to do it. In his superb self-confidence, he would have undertaken to conduct the orchestra at Govent Garden or navigate a liner across the Atlantic. Knowing this, I ceased to bother my head about so small a matter as the way in which he learned to drive a motor car. Behold him then, one raw March morning, scuttering along the road that leads from Aal to Salon in Provence. He wore a goatskin coat and a goatskin cap drawn well down over his ears. His handsome bearded face with its lustrous laughing eyes peeped out curiously human amid the circumambient shagginess. There was not a turn visible in the long straight road that lost itself in the far distant mist, not a speck on it signifying cart or creature. Araciti Pujol gave himself up to the delirium of speed and urged the half-bursting engine to 20 miles an hour. In spite of the racing track surface, the crazy car bumped and jolted. The sides of the rickety bonnet clashed like symbols. Every valve wheezed and squealed. Every nut seemed to have got loose and terrifically clattered. Rattling noises, grunting noises, screeching noises escaped from every part. It creaked and clanked like an over-insured tramp steamer and a typhoon. It lurched as though afflicted with a locomotor ataxia and noisemapers belched forth from the open exhaust pipe as though the car were a toffet on wheels. But all was music in the ears of Araciti. The car was going. It did not always go. The road scutted under him and the morning air dashed stingingly into his face. For the moment, he desired nothing more of life. This road between Arles and Salon runs through one of the most desolate parts of France, a long, endless plain about five miles broad, lying between two long, low ranges of hills. It is strewn like a monstrous Golgotha, not with skulls but with huge, smooth pebbles as massed together as the shingle on a beach. Rank grass shoots up in what interstices it finds, but beyond this nothing grows. Nothing can grow. On a sunless day under a lowering sky, it is a land accursed. Mile after mile, for nearly 20 miles, stretches this stony and barren waste. No human habitation cheers the sight. For from such a soil, no human hand can rest a sustenance. Only the rare traffic going from Arles to Salon and from Salon to Arles passes along the road. The cheery passing show of the live highway is wanting. There are no children, no dogs, no ducks and hens, no men and women lounging to their work, no red-trousered soldiers on bicycles, no blue blouse to weather-beaten farmers jogging along in their little carts. As far as the eye can reach, nothing suggestive of man meets the view. Nothing but the infinite barrenness of the plain, the ridges on either side, the long straight, endless road cleaving through this abomination of desolation. To walk through it would be a task as depressing as a mortal could execute, but to the speed drunk and motorist, it is a realization of dim and tremulous visions of paradise. What need to look to right or left when you are swallowing up free, mile after mile of dizzying road? Aristide looked neither to right nor left and knew this was heaven at last. Suddenly, however, he became aware of a small black spot far ahead in the very middle of the unencumbered track. As he drew near, it looked like a great stone. He swerved as he passed it and looking saw that it was a bundle wrapped in a striped blanket. It seemed so odd that it should be lying there that, his curiosity being aroused, he pulled up and walked back a few yards to examine it. The nearer he approached, the less did it resemble an ordinary bundle. He bent down and low between the folds of the blanket peeped the face of a sleeping child. No de dire, cried Aristide, no de dire de no de dire. He ought not to have said it, but his astonishment was great. He stared at the baby, then up and down the road, then swept the horizon. Not a soul was visible. How did the baby get there? The heavens, according to history, have rained many things in their time, bread, quails, blood, frogs, and whatnot, but there is no mention of them ever having rained babies. It could not therefore have come from the clouds. It could not even have fallen from the tale of a cart, for then it would have been killed, or at least have broken its bones and generally been rendered a different baby from the sound chubby might sleeping as peacefully as though the Golgotha of Provence had been its cradle from birth. It could not have come there accidentally. Deliberate hands had laid it down in the center of the road, too. Why not by the side where it would have been out of the track of thundering automobiles? When the murderous intent became obvious, Aristides shivered and felt sick. He breathed fierce and honest anathema on the heads of the bowless fiends who had abandoned the baby to its doom. Then he stooped and picked up the bundle tenderly in his arms. The wee face puckered for a moment and the wee limbs shot out vigorously. Then the dark eyes opened and stared, Aristides solemnly and wonderingly in the face. So must the infant Remus have first regarded his she-wolf mother. Having ascertained, however, that it was not going to be devoured, it began to cry lustily, showing two little white specks of teeth in the lower gum. Mon pauvre petit, you are hungry, said Aristides carrying it to the car, racked by the clattering engine. I wonder when you last tasted food, if I only had a little biscuit and wine to give you. But alas, there's nothing but petrol and corn cure, neither of which I believe is good for babies. Wait, wait, mon chali, until we get to Salon. There I promise you proper nourishment. He danced the baby up and down in his arms and made half-remembered and insane noises, which eventually had the effect of reducing it to its original calm stare of wonderment. Voila, said Aristides delighted. Now we can advance. He deposited it on the vacant seat, clambered up behind the wheel, and started, but not at the breakneck speed of 20 miles an hour. He went slowly and carefully his heart in his mouth at every lurch of the afflicted automobile, fearful lest the child should be precipitated from its slippery resting place. But alas, he did not proceed far. At the end of a kilometer, the engine stopped dead. He leaped out to see what had happened, and after a few perplexed and exhausting moments, remembered he had not even petrol to offer to the baby, having omitted, most feather-headed of mortals, to fill up his tank before starting and forgotten to bring a spare tin. There was nothing to be done. Save weight patiently until another motorist should pass by from whom he might purchase the necessary amount of essence to carry him on to Salon. Meanwhile, the baby would go breakfastless. Aristides clambered back to his seat, took the child on his knees, and commiserated it profoundly. Sitting there on his apparently homemade vehicle in the midst of the unearthly silence of the sullen and barren wilderness, attired in his shaggy goat-skin cap and coat, he resembled and up-to-date Robinson Crusoe, dandling and infant Friday. The disposal of the child at Salon would be simple. After having it fed and tended at an hotel, he would make his deposition to the police who would take it to the Enfant-au-Ve, the Department of State, which provides fathers and mothers and happy homes for foundlings at a cost to the country of twenty-five francs a month per foundling. It is true that the parents so provided think more of the twenty-five francs than they do of the foundling, but that was the affair of the state, not a veracity de bourgeois. In the meanwhile, he examined the brat curiously. It was dressed in a coarse calico jumper, very unclean. The striped blanket was full of holes and smelled abominably. Some sort of toilet appeared essential. He got down and from his valise took what seemed necessary to the purpose. The jumper and blanket he threw far on the pebbly waist. The baby, stark-naked for a few moments, crowed and laughed and stretched like a young animal, revealing itself to be a sturdy boy about nine months old. When he seemed fit to be clad, Aristotelie tied him up in the lower part of a suit of pajamas, cutting little holes in the sides for his tiny arms, and further, with a view to cheating his hunger, provided him with a shoehorn. The defenseless little head he managed to squeeze into the split mouth of a woollen sock. Aristotelie regarded him in triumph. The boy chuckled gleefully. Then Aristotelie folded him warm in his traveling rug and entered into an animated conversation. Now it happened that at the most interesting point of the talk, the baby clutched Aristotelie's finger in his little brown hand. The tiny fingers clung strong. A queer thrill ran through the impressionable man. The tiny fingers seemed to close around his heart. It was a bonny, good-natured, gurgling scrap, and the pure eyes looked truthfully into his soul. Poor little wretch, said Aristotelie, who, peasant son that he was, knew what he was talking about. Poor little wretch, if you go into the on-phone trouvée, you'll have a devil of a time of it. The tiny clasp tightened. As if the baby understood, the chuckle died from his face. You'll be cuffed and kicked and half-starred while your adopted mother pockets her 25 francs a month, and you'll belong to nobody and wonder why the douche you're alive and wish you were dead. And if you remember today, you'll curse me for not having had the decency to run over you. The clasp relaxed. Puckers appeared at the corners of the dribbling mouth and a myriad tiny horizontal lines of care marked the sock-capped brow. Poor little devil, said Aristotelie, my heart bleeds for you, especially now that you're dressed in my sock and pajama and are sucking the only shoehorn I ever possessed. A welcome sound caused Aristotelie to leap into the middle of the road. He looked ahead and there in a cloud of dust, a thing like a torpedo came swooping down. He held up both his arms, the signal of a motorist in distress. The torpedo approached with slackened speed and stopped. It was an evil-looking, drab, high-powered racer and two bears with goggles sad in the midst thereof. The bear at the wheel raised his cap and asked courteously, what can we do for you, monsieur? At that moment, the baby broke into heart-rending cries. Aristotelie took off his goat-skin cap and, remaining uncovered, looked at the bear, then at the baby, then at the bear again. Monsieur said he, I suppose it's useless to ask you whether you have any milk and a feeding bottle? Meh, dite-tom, shouted the bear furiously, his hand on the brake, stop an automobile like this on such a pretext. Aristotelie held up a protesting hand and fixed the bear with the irresistible roguery of his eyes. Pardon, monsieur, I'm also out of petrol. Forgive a father's feelings. The baby wants milk and I want petrol and I don't know whose need is the more imperative, but if you could sell me enough petrol to carry me to Salon, I should be most grateful. The request for petrol is not to be refused, to supply it, if possible, is the written law of motor-dom. The second bear slid from his seat and extracted a tin from the recesses of the torpedo and stood by while Aristotelie filled his tank, a process that necessitated laying the baby on the ground. He smiled. You seem amused, said Aristotelie. Pas bleu, said the motorist. You have at the back of your auto a placard telling people to cure their corns and in front you carry a baby. That, replied Aristotelie, is easily understood. I am the agent of the mazon hieropope of Marseille and the baby, whom I, it's father, am carrying from a dead mother to an invalid aunt I am using as an advertisement. As he luckily has no corns, I can exhibit his feet as proof of the efficacy of the corn cure. The bear laughed and joined his companion and the torpedo thundered away. Aristotelie replaced the baby and with a complicated arrangement of string fastened it securely to the seat. The baby, having ceased crying, clutched his beard as he bent over and gooed pleasantly. The tug was at his heartstrings. How could he give so fascinating so valiant a might over to the enfant trouvée? Besides, it belonged to him. Had he not in jest claimed paternity, it had given him a new importance. He could say, mon fils, just as he could say with equal veracity, mon automobile. A generous thrill ran through him. He burst into a loud laugh, clapped his hands and danced before the delighted babe. Mon petit Jean, said he with humorous tenderness, or I suppose her name is Jean. I will rend myself in pieces before I let the administration board you out among the wolves. You shall not go to the enfant trouvée. I myself will adopt you, mon petit Jean. As Aristotelie had no fixed abode, however, the address on his visiting card, two, one, three, bis, roue, sans enlever Paris, being that of an old greengrocer woman of his acquaintance, with whom he lodged when he visited the metropolis, there was a certain amount of rationless in the undertaking. But when was Aristotelie otherwise than rash? Had Prudence been his guiding principal through life, he would not have been selling corncure for the Maison, Eropath, and consequently would not have discovered the child at all. In great delight at this satisfactory settlement of little Jean's destiny, he started the ramshackle engine and drove triumphantly on his way. Jean, fatigued by the emotions of the last half hour, slumbered peacefully. The little angel, said Aristotelie. The sun was shining when they arrived at Salon, the gayest, the most coquettish, the most laughing little town in Provence. It is a place, all trees and open spaces and fountains and cafes and sauntering people. The only thing grim about it is the solitary mash-equalated tower in the main street, the last vestige of ancient ramparts, and even that, close cuddled on each side by prosperous houses with shops beneath, looks like an old, old wrinkled grandmother smiling amid her daintier grandchildren. Everyone seemed to be in the open air. Those who kept shops stood at the doorway. The prospect augured well for the Maison-Iropath. Aristotelie stopped before an hotel, disentangled Jean to the mild interest of the passersby, and carrying him in, delivered him into the arms of the landlady. Madame, he said, this is my son. I am taking him from his mother, who is dead, to an aunt who is an invalid, so he is alone on my hands. He is very hungry, and I beseech you to feed him at once. The motherly woman received the babe instinctively and cast aside the traveling rug in which he was enveloped. Then she nearly dropped him. Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce qu'est-ce ça? She stared in stupor faction at the stalking cap and at the long flannel pajama legs that depended from the body of the infant around whose neck the waist was tightly drawn. Never since the world began had the babe masqueraded in such attire. Aristotelie smiled his most engaging smile. My son's luggage has unfortunately been lost. His porte-manteau au frappetit was so small. A poor widower, I did what I could. I am but a mere man, Madame. Evidently, said the woman, with some asperity. Aristotelie took a louis from his purse. If you will purchase him some necessary articles of costume while I fulfill my duties towards the Maison-Hero-Path of Marseille, which I represent, you will be doing me a kindness. The landlady took the louis in a bewildered fashion, allowing for the baby's porte-manteau to have gone astray what she asked had become of the clothes he must have been wearing. Aristotelie entered upon a picturesque and a realistic explanation. The landlady was stout, she was stupid, she could not grasp the fantastic. Mon Dieu, she said, to think that there are Christians who dress their children like this. She sighed exhaustively and holding the grotesque infant close to her breast, disappeared indignantly to administer the very great needed motherment. Aristotelie breathed a sigh of relief and after a well-earned eugénée went forth with the car into the Place de Auge and prepared to ply his trade. First he unfurled the Héro-Path banner, which floated proudly in the breeze. Then on a folding table he displayed his collection of ointment boxes, together with pills and a toothache killer, which he sold on his own account, and a wax model of a human foot on which were grafted putty-corns in every stage of calocity. As soon as half a dozen idlers collected, he commenced his harangue. When their numbers increased, he performed prodigies of chirapathy on the putty-corns and demonstrated the proper application of the cure. He talked incessantly all the while. He has told me in the grand manner that this phase of his career was distasteful to him, but I scarcely believe it. If ever a man loved to talk, it was Aristide Bougior and what profession, say, that of an advocate, offers more occasion for wheeling locacity than that of a public vendor of quack medicaments. As a matter of fact, he reveled in it. When he offered a free box of the cure to the first lady who confessed the need thereof and a blushing wench came forward, the rascal reveled in the opportunity for bad an edge, which set the good human crowd in a roar. He loved to exert his half-mesmeric power. He had not the soul of a mount-a-bank where Aristide's soul had its high and generous dwelling place, but he had the puckish swiftness and mischief of which the successful mount-a-bank is made. And he was a success because he treated it as an art, thinking nothing during its practice of the material gain, laughing wholeheartedly like his great predecessor, Sabaran, of imperishable memory, and satisfying to the full his instinct for the dramatic. On the other hand, ever since he started life in the brass-buttoned shell-jacket of a chateau in a Marseille cafe and dreamed dreams of the fairytale lives of the clients who came in accompanied by beautifully dressed ladies, he had social ambitions, and the social status of the mount-a-bank is, to say the least of it, ambiguous. Ah, me, what would a man be without the unattainable? Aristide pocketed his takings, struck his flag, dismantled his table, and visited the shops of Salon in the interest of the Maison-Iropath. The days work over, he returned to inquire for his suppositious offspring. The landlady, all smiles, presented him with a transmogrified genre, cleansed and powdered, arrayed in the smug panoply of beijois-babyhood. Shoes with a pom-pom adorned his feet, and a rakish cap decorated with white satin ribbons crowned his head. He also wore an embroidered frock and a police grimmed with rabbit fur. Jean grinned and dribbled self-consciously and showed his two little teeth to the proudest father in the world. The landlady invited the happy parent into her little dark parlor beyond the office, and there exhibited a parcel containing garments and implements whose use was a mystery to Aristide. She also demanded the greater part of another Louis. Aristide began to learn that fatherhood is expensive, but what did it matter? After all, here was a babe equipped to face the exigencies of a sensorious world in looks and apparel, a credit to any father. As the afternoon was fine, and as it seemed a pity to waste satin and rabbit fur on the murky interior of the hotel, Aristide borrowed a perambulator from the landlady, and, joyous as a schoolboy, wielded this blended infant through the sunny avenues of Salon. That evening a bed was made up for the child in Aristide's room, which, until its master retired for the night, was haunted by the landlady, the chambermaids, and all the kitchen wenches in the hotel. Aristide had to turn them out and lock his door. This is excellent, said he, apostrophizing the thoroughly fed, washed, and now sleeping child. This is superb, as in every hotel there are women, and as every woman thinks she can be a much better mother than I, so in every hotel we visit, we shall find a staff of trained and enthusiastic nurses. Jean, you will live like a little coquante. The night passed amid various excursions on the part of Aristide and alarms on the part of Jean. Sometimes the child lay so still that Aristide arose to see whether he was alive. Sometimes he gave such proofs of vitality that Aristide, in terror, lest he should awaken the whole hotel, walked him about the room chanting lullabies. This was in accordance with Jean's views on luxury, he good with joy. When Aristide put him back to bed, he howled. Aristide snatched him up and he good again. At last, Aristide fed him desperately, dandled him eventually to sleep and returned to an excited pillow. It is a fearsome thing for a man to be left alone in the dead of night with a young baby. I'll get used to it, said Aristide. The next morning he purchased a basket which he lashed ingeniously on the left-hand seat of the car and a cushion which he fitted into the basket. The berth prepared, he deposited the sumptuously apparel to Jean therein and drove away amid the perplexed benizens of the landlady and her satellites. Thus began the oddest odyssey on whichever mortals embarked. The man with the automobile, the corn cure and the baby grew to be legendary in the villages of Provence. When the days were fine, Jean and his basket assisted at the dramatic performance in the marketplace. Becoming a magnet for the women and being of a good-humored and rollicking nature, he helped on the sale of the cure prodigiously. He earned his keep as Aristide declared in exultation. Soon, Aristide formed a collection of his tricks and doings wherewith he would entertain the chance acquaintances of his vagabondage. To a permanent companion he would have grown insufferable. He invented him a career from the day of his birth, chronicled the coming of the first tooth, wept over the demise of the fictitious mother and in his imaginative way convinced himself of his fatherhood. And every day the child crept deeper into the man's sunny heart. Together they had many wanderings and many adventures. The wheezy crazy mechanism of the car went to bits in unexpected places. They tobogganed down hills without a break at the imminent peril of their lives. They suffered the indignity of being towed by wine wagons. They spent hours by the wayside while Aristide took her to pieces and sometimes with the help of a passing motorist put her together again. Sometimes too an inn boasted no landlady, only a disheveled and overdriven chambermaid who refused to wash Jean. Aristide washed and powdered Jean himself, the landlord lounging by, pipe in mouth, at ministering suggestions. Once Jean grew ill and Aristide in terror summoned the doctor who told him that he had filled the child up with milk to bursting point. Yet in spite of heterogeneous nursing and exposure to sun and rain and piercing mistrawl, Jean throwed exceedingly and to Aristide's delight began to cut another tooth. The vain man began to regard himself as an expert in denticulture. At the end of a fairly wide circuit, Aristide with empty store boxes and pleasantly full pockets arrived at the little town of Ex-Anche Provence. He had arrived there not without difficulty. On the outskirts, the car which had been coaxed reluctantly along for many weary kilometers had groaned, rattled, word, given a couple of convulsive leaps and stood stock still. This was one of her pretty ways. He was used to them and hitherto he had been able to wheel her into resumed motion. But this time with all his cunning and perspiration he could not induce another throb in the tired engines. A friendly motorist towed them to the Hotel de Paris in the Cour Mirabeau. Having arranged for his room and given Jean in charge of the landlady, he procured to some helping hands and pushed the car to the nearest garage. There he gave orders for the car to be put into running condition for the following morning and returned to the hotel. He found Jean in the vestibule, sprawling sultanesquely on the landlady's lap, the center of an admiring circle which consisted of two little girls in pigtails, an ancient peasant woman and two English ladies of obvious but graceful spinsterhood. Here is the father, said the landlady. He had already explained Jean to the startled woman. Landlady's were always startled at Jean's unconventional advent. Madame, he had said, according to rigid formula, this is my son. I am taking him from his mother, who is dead, to an aunt who is an invalid, so he is alone on my hands. I beseech you to let some kind woman attend to his necessities. There was no need for further explanation. Aristite thus introduced, bowed politely, removed his crucible cap and smiled luminously at the assembled women. They resumed their antiphonal chorus of worship. The brown and merry friendly brat had something of Aristite's personal charm. He had a bubble and a goo for everybody. Aristite looked on in great delight. Jean was a son to be proud of. Ah, qu'il est fort, fort comme un tec. Regardez ces dons, the darling thing. Il est, oh, dear, il est ravissante with a disastrous plunge into gender. Qu'il y est, il y est, c'est moi qui le ferai-re. To think, said the younger English woman to her sister, of this we might traveling about in an open motor. He's having the time of his life. He enjoys it as much as I do, said Aristite, in his excellent English. The lady started. She was a well-bred, good-humored woman in the early thirties, stout with reddish hair and irregular, though comely features. Her sister was thin, faded, sandy, and kind-looking. I thought you were French, she said apologetically. And so I am, replied Aristite, Provence, all of Provence, Meridiana, all of the midi, Marseille, of Marseille. But you talk English perfectly. I've lived in your beautiful country, said Aristite. You have the bonniest boy, said the elder lady. How old is he? Nine months, three weeks, and a day, said Aristite promptly. The younger lady bent over the miraculous infant. Can I take him? Esca-je-puis! Oh, dear! She turned a whimsical face to Aristite. He translated, the landlady surrendered the baby. The lady danced him with the spinster's charming awkwardness, yet with instinctive feminine security about the whole, while the little girls in pigtails, daughters of the house, followed like a derottery angels in an altarpiece, and the old peasant woman looked benignly on, a myriad wrinkled Saint Elizabeth. Aristite had seen Jean dandled by dozens of women during their brief comradeship. He had thought little of it, as it was the natural thing for women to do. But when this sweet English lady, Mother Jean, it seemed to matter a great deal. She lifted Jean and himself to a higher plane. Her touch was a consecration. It was the hour of the day when enfants of nine months should be washed and put to bed. The landlady, announcing the fact, held out her arms. Jean clung to his English nurse who played to the fascinating game of pretending to eat his hand. The landlady had not that accomplishment. She was dull and practical. Come and be washed, she said. Oh, do let me come too, cried the English lady. Bien, volunteer, mademoiselle, said the other. Say, Parisie. The English lady held Jean out for the paternal good night. Aristite kissed the child in her arms. The action brought about, for the moment, a curious and sweet intimacy. My sister is passionately fond of children, said the elder lady, in smiling apology. And you, I too, but Anne, my sister, will not let me have a chance when she is by. After dinner, Aristite went up as usual to his room to see that Jean was alive, painless, and asleep. Finding him awake, he sat by his side, and with the earnestness of a nursery maid, patted him off to slumber. Then he crept out on tiptoe and went downstairs. Outside the hotel, he came upon the two sisters sitting on a bench and drinking coffee. The night was fine. The terraces of the neighboring cafes were filled with people. And all the life of Anne, not at the cafes, promenaded up and down the wide and pleasant avenue. The lady smiled. How was the boy? He gave the latest news. Permission to join them at their coffee was graciously given. A waiter brought a chair and he sat down. Conversation drifted from the baby to general topics. The ladies told the simple story of their tour. They had been to Nice and Marseille and they were going on the next day to Avignon. They also told their name, Honeywood. He gathered that the elder was Janet, the younger Anne. They lived at Chislerist when they were in England and often came up to London to attend the Queen's Hall concerts and the dramatic performances at his Majesty's Theater. As guileless, though as self-reliant, gentle women, as sequestered England could produce, Aristite, impressionable and responsive, fell at once into the key of their talk. He has told me that their society produced on him the effect of the cool hands of saints against his cheek. At last the conversation inevitably returned to Jean. The landlady had related the tragic history of the dead mother and the invalid aunt. They deplored the orphaned state of the precious babe for he was precious, they declared. Miss Anne had taken him to her heart. If only you had seen him in his bath, Janet. She turned to Aristite. I'm afraid, she said, very softly, hesitating a little. I'm afraid this must be a sad journey for you. He made her rye mouth. The sympathy was so sincere, so womanly, that which was generous in him revolted against acceptance. Madame Azele, said he, I can play a farce with landlady's. It happens to be convenient, in fact necessary. But with you, no, you are different. Jean is not my child and who his parents are. I've not the remotest idea. Not your child? They looked at him incredulously. I will tell you in confidence, said he. Jean's history was related in all its picturesque details. The horrors of the life of an enfant trouvée luridly depicted. The sisters listened with tears in their foolish eyes. Behind the tears, Anne's grew bright. When he had finished, she stretched out her hand impulsively. Oh, I call it splendid of you. He took the hand and in his graceful French fashion touched it with his lips. She flashed, having expected, in her English way, that he would grasp it. Your commendation, Madame Azele, is sweet to hear, said he. I hope he will grow up to be a true comfort to you, Monsieur Poujol, said Miss Janet. I can understand a woman doing what you've done, but scarcely a man, said Miss Anne. But dear Madame Azele, cried out in steady with a large gesture, cannot a man have his heart touched, his ses entrées avant fin stirred by baby fingers? Why should love of the helpless and the innocent be denied him? Why, indeed, said Miss Janet. Miss Anne said humbly, I only meant that your devotion to Jean was all the more beautiful, Monsieur Poujol. Soon after this they parted, the night air having grown chill. Both ladies shook hands with him, warmly. Anne's hand lingered the fraction of a second longer in his than Janet's. She had seen Jean in his bath. Aristide wandered down the gay avenue into the open road and looked at the stars, reading in their splendor a brilliant destiny for Jean. He felt, in his sensitive way, that the two sweet-sold English women had deepened and sanctified his love for Jean. When he returned to the hotel, he kissed his incongruous roommate with the gentleness of a woman. In the morning he went around to the garage. The foreman, meccanition, advanced to meet him. Well, there is nothing to be done, Miss Sure. What do you mean by nothing to be done? Ask Maristide. The other shrugged his sturdy shoulders. She is worn out. She needs new carburation, new cylinders, new water circulation, new lubrication, new vows, new brakes, new ignition, new gears, new bolts, new nuts, new everything. In short, she is not repairable. Aristide listened in incredulous amazement. His automobile, his wonderful, beautiful clashing, dashing automobile, unrepairable. It was impossible. But a quarter of an hour's demonstration by the foreman convinced him the car was dead. The engine would never whirr again. All the petrol in the world would not stimulate her into life. Never again would he sit behind that wheel, rejoicing in the insolence of speed. The car, which in spite of her manifold infirmities, he had fondly imagined to be immortal, had run her last course. Aristide felt faint. And there is nothing to be done? Nothing, Miss Sure, 50 francs is all that she is worth. What, any rate, said Aristide, send the basket to the Hotel de Paris. He went out of the garage like a man in a dream. At the door he turned to take a last look at the pride of his life. Her stern was towards him, and all he saw of her was the ironical legend, cure your corns. At the hotel he found the bench outside, occupied chiefly by Jean. One of the little girls in pigtails was holding him, while Miss Anne administered the feeding bottle. Provincial France is the happiest country in the world, in that you can live your intimate, domestic life in public, and nobody heeds. I hope you've not come to tell Jean to boot and saddle, said Miss Anne, a smile on her roughly hewn, comely face. Alas, said Aristide, cheered by the charming spectacle before him. I don't know when we can get away. My auto has broken down hopelessly. I ought to go at once to my firm in Marseille. He spoke as if he were partner in the Maison-Hiro-Pas, but I don't quite know what to do with Jean. Oh, I'll look after Jean. But you said you were leaving for Avignon today. She laughed holding the feeding bottle. The palace of the popes has been standing for six centuries, and it will be standing tomorrow. Whereas Jean, here Jean, for some reason known to himself, grinned, wet, and wide, isn't he the most fascinating thing of the 20th century? She cried, logically inconsequential, like most of her sex. You go to Marseille, Monsieur Pujol. So Aristide took the train to Marseille, a half-hour's journey, and in a quarter of the city, resembling a fusion of Jaro, an unfashionable part of St. Louis, and a brimstone manufacturing suburb of Gaïna, he interviewed the high authorities of the Maison-Hiro-Path. His cajolery could lead men into diverse lunacies, but it could not induce the hard-bitten manufacturer of quack remedies to provide a brand new automobile for his personal convenience. The old auto had broken down. The manufacturer shrugged his shoulders. The mystery was that it had lasted as long as it did. He had expected it to explode the first day. The idea had originally been that of the junior partner, a scatterbrained youth, whom at times they humored. Meanwhile, there being no be placarded and be flagged automobile, there could be no advertisement. Therefore, they had no further use for Monsieur Pujol's services. Good, said Aristide, when he reached the evil thoroughfare, it was a degraded occupation, and I am glad I am out of it. Meanwhile, here is Marseille before me, and it will be astonishing if I do not find some fresh-wrote fortune before the day is out. Aristide tramped and tramped all day through the streets of Marseille, but the road he saw, he did not find. He returned to a endire perplexity. He was used to finding himself suddenly cut off from the means of livelihood. It was his chronic state of being. His gay resourcefulness had always carried him through, but then there had been only himself to think of. Now there was Jean. For the first time for many years, the dragonfly's wings grew limp. Jean, what could he do with Jean? Jean had already gone to sleep when he arrived. All day he had been as good as gold, so Miss Anne declared. For herself she had spent the happiest day of her life. I don't wonder at your being devoted to him, Monsieur Pujol, she said. He has the most loving ways of any baby I ever met. Yes, Madame Azale replied Aristide, with an unaccustomed huskiness in his voice. I am devoted to him. It may seem odd for a man to be wrapped up in a baby of nine months old, but it's like that. It's true. Je le dors de tout mon coeur, de tout mon être. He cried in a sudden gust of passion. Miss Anne smiled kindly, not dreaming of his perplexity, amused by his southern warmth. Miss Janet joined them in the hall. They went in to dinner, Aristides, sitting at the central table de haute, that ladies had a little table by themselves. After dinner they met again outside the hotel and drank coffee and talked the evening away. He was not as bright a companion as on the night before. His gaiety was forced. He talked about everything else in the world but Jean. The temptation to pour his financial troubles into the sympathetic ears of these two dear women, he resisted. They regarded him as on a social equality, as a man of means engaged in some sort of business at Marseille. They had invited him to bring Jean to see them at Giselhurst when he should happen to be in England again. Pride forbade him to confess himself a homeless, penniless vagabond. The exquisite charm of their frank intimacy would be broken. Besides, what could they do? They retired early. Aristides again sought the message of the stars but the sky was clouded over and soon a fine rain began to fall. A bach at a café brought him neither comfort nor inspiration. He returned to the hotel and eluding a gossip seeking landlady went up to his room. What could be done? Neither the sleeping babe nor himself could offer any suggestion. One thing was grimly inevitable. He and Jean must part. To carry him about like an infant prince in an automobile had after all been a simple matter to drag him through heaven knew what hardships in his makeshift existence was impossible. In his childlike impulsive fashion he had not thought of the future when he adopted Jean. Aristides always regarded the fortune of the moment as if it would last forever. Past deceptions never affected his incurable optimism. Now Jean and he must part. Aristides felt that the end of the world had come. His pacing to and fro awoke the child who demanded in his own way the soothing rocking of his father's arms. There he bubbled and gooed till Aristides' heart nearly broke. What can I do with you, mon petit Jean? The enfant trouvait after all he thought of it with a shudder. The child asleep again. He laid it on its bed and then sat far into the night thinking barrenly. At last one of his sudden gleams of inspiration illuminated his mind. It was the only way. He took out his watch. It was four o'clock. What had to be done must be done swiftly. In the traveling basket which had been sent from the garage he placed a pillow and onto the pillow he transferred with breathless care the sleeping Jean and wrapped him up snug and warm in bedclothes. Then he folded the tiny day garments that lay on a chair, collected the little odds and ends belonging to the child, took from his valise the rest of Jean's little wardrobe and laid them at the foot of the basket. The most miserable man in France then counted up his money, divided it into two parts and wrote a hasty letter which with the bundle of notes he enclosed in an envelope. My little Jean said he, laying the envelope on the child's breast. Here is a little more than half my fortune. Half is for yourself and a little more to pay your wretched father's hotel bill. Goodbye, my little Jean. Je t'aime bien to say and don't reproach me. About an hour afterwards Miss Anne awoke and listened and in a moment or two Miss Janet awoke also. Janet, do you hear that? It's a child crying just outside the door. It sounds like Jean. Nonsense, my dear. But Anne switched on the light and went to see for herself. And there in the tiny at the room that separated the bedroom from the corridor she found the basket, a new pharaoh's daughter before a new little Moses in the bull rushes. In bewilderment she brought the ark into the room and read the letter addressed to Janet and herself. She burst into tears. All she said was, oh, Janet, why couldn't he have told us? And then she fell to hugging the child to her bosom. Meanwhile, Aracidie Pujol, glad in his goatskin cap and coat, beliefs in hand, was plodding through the rain in search of the illusive phantom fortune. Gloriously certain that he had assured Jean's future, yet was such a heartache as he had never had in his life before. End of chapter four.