The Adventures of a Modest Man
- -
- 100%
- +
"What is that banging and squeaking?" asked Alida, as we entered the foliage of the southern terrace. "Not Punch and Judy – oh, I haven't seen Punch since I was centuries younger! Do let us go, papa!"
Around the painted puppet box children sat, open-mouthed. Back of them crowded parents and nurses and pretty girls and gay young officers, while, from the pulpit, Punch held forth amid screams of infantile delight, or banged his friends with his stick in the same old fashion that delighted us all – centuries since.
"Such a handsome officer," said Alida under her breath.
The officer in question, a dragoon, was looking at Dulcima in that slightly mischievous yet well-bred manner peculiar to European officers.
Dulcima did not appear to observe him.
"Why – why, that is Monsieur de Barsac, who came over on our ship!" said Alida, plucking me by the sleeve. "Don't you remember how nice he was when we were so – so sea – miserable? You really ought to bow to him, papa. If you don't, I will."
I looked at the dragoon and caught his eye – such a bright, intelligent, mischievous eye! – and I could not avoid bowing.
Up he came, sword clanking, white-gloved hand glued to the polished visor of his crimson cap, and – the girls were delighted.
Now what do you suppose that Frenchman did? He gave up his entire day to showing us the beauties of the Rive Gauche.
Under his generous guidance my daughters saw what few tourists see intelligently – the New Sorbonne, with its magnificent mural decorations by Puvis de Chavannes; we saw the great white-domed Observatory, piled up in the sky like an Eastern temple, and the beautiful old palace of the Luxembourg. Also, we beheld the Republican Guards, à cheval, marching out of their barracks on the Rue de Tournon; and a splendid glittering company of cavalry they were, with their silver helmets, orange-red facings, white gauntlets, and high, polished boots – the picked men of all the French forces, as far as physique is concerned.
In the late afternoon haze the dome of the Pantheon, towering over the Latin Quarter, turned to purest cobalt in the sky. Under its majestic shadow the Boulevard St. Michel ran all green and gold with gas-jets already lighted in lamps and restaurants and the scores of students' cafés which line the main artery of the "Quartier Latin."
"I wish," said Alida, "that it were perfectly proper for us to walk along those terraces."
Captain de Barsac appeared extremely doubtful, but entirely at our disposal.
"You know what our students are, monsieur," he said, twisting his short blond moustache; "however – if monsieur wishes – ?"
So, with my daughters in the centre, and Captain de Barsac and myself thrown out in strong flanking parties, we began our march.
The famous cafés of the Latin Quarter were all ablaze with electricity and gas and colored incandescent globes. On the terraces hundreds of tables and chairs stood, occupied by students in every imaginable civilian costume, although the straight-brimmed stovepipe and the béret appeared to be the favorite headgear. At least a third of the throng was made up of military students from the Polytechnic, from Fontainebleau, and from Saint-Cyr. Set in the crowded terraces like bunches of blossoms were chattering groups of girls – bright-eyed, vivacious, beribboned and befrilled young persons, sipping the petit-verre or Amer-Picon, gossiping, babbling, laughing like dainty exotic birds. To and fro sped the bald-headed, white-aproned waiters, balancing trays full of glasses brimming with red and blue and amber liquids.
Here was the Café d'Harcourt, all a-glitter, with music playing somewhere inside – the favorite resort of the medical students from the Sorbonne, according to Captain de Barsac. Here was the Café de la Source, with its cascade of falling water and its miniature mill-wheel turning under a crimson glow of light; here was the famous Café Vachette, celebrated as the centre of all Latin Quarter mischief; and, opposite to it, blazed the lights of the "Café des Bleaus," so called because haunted almost exclusively by artillery officers from the great school of Fontainebleau.
Up the boulevard and down the boulevard moved the big double-decked tram-cars, horns sounding incessantly; cabs dashed up to the cafés, deposited their loads of students or pretty women, then darted away toward the river, their lamps shining like stars.
It was truly a fairy scene, with the electric lights playing on the foliage of the trees, turning the warm tender green of the chestnut leaves to a wonderful pale bluish tint, and etching the pavements underfoot with exquisite Chinese shadows.
"It is a shame that this lovely scene should not be entirely respectable," said Alida, resentfully.
"Vice," murmured de Barsac to me, "could not exist unless it were made attractive."
As far as the surface of the life before us was concerned, there was nothing visible to shock anybody; and, under escort, there is no earthly reason why decent women of any age should not enjoy the spectacle of the "Boul' Mich." on a night in springtime.
An innocent woman, married or unmarried, ought not to detect anything unpleasant in the St. Michel district; but, alas! what is known as "Smart Society" is so preternaturally wise in these piping times o' wisdom, that the child is not only truly the father of the man, but also his instructor and interpreter – to that same man's astonishment and horror. It may always have been so – even before the days when our theatres were first licensed to instruct our children in object lessons of the seven deadly sins – but I cannot recollect the time when, as a youngster, I was tolerantly familiar with the scenes now nightly offered to our children through the courtesy of our New York theatre managers.
Slowly we turned to retrace our steps, strolling up the boulevard through the fragrant May evening, until we came to the gilded railing which encircles the Luxembourg Gardens from the School of Mines to the Palais-du-Sénat.
Here Captain De Barsac took leave of us with all the delightful and engaging courtesy of a well-bred Frenchman; and he seemed to be grateful for the privilege of showing us about over a district as tiresomely familiar to him as his own barracks.
I could do no less than ask him to call on us, though his devotion to Dulcima both on shipboard and here made me a trifle wary.
"We are stopping," said I, "at the Hôtel de l'Univers – "
He started and gazed at me so earnestly that I asked him why he did so.
"The – the Hôtel de l'Univers?" he repeated, looking from me to Dulcima and from Dulcima to Alida.
"Is it not respectable?" I demanded, somewhat alarmed.
" – But – but perfectly, monsieur. It is, of course, the very best hotel of that kind – "
"What kind?" I asked.
"Why – for the purpose. Ah, monsieur, I had no idea that you came to Paris for that. I am so sorry, so deeply grieved to hear it. But of course all will be well – "
He stopped and gazed earnestly at Dulcima.
"It is not – not you, mademoiselle, is it?"
My children and I stared at each other in consternation.
"What in heaven's name is the matter with that hotel?" I asked.
Captain de Barsac looked startled.
"Is there anything wrong with the guests there?" asked Dulcima, faintly.
"No – oh, no – only, of course, they are all under treatment – "
"Under treatment!" I cried nervously. "For what!!!"
"Is it possible," muttered the captain, "that you went to that hotel not knowing? Did you not notice anything peculiar about the guests there?"
"They all seem to wear court-plaster or carry their arms in slings," faltered Dulcima.
"And they come from all over the world – Russia, Belgium, Spain," murmured Alida nervously. "What do they want?"
"Thank heaven!" cried De Barsac, radiantly; "then you are not there for the treatment!"
"Treatment for what?" I groaned.
"Hydrophobia!"
I wound my arms around my shrinking children.
"It is the hotel where all the best people go who come to Paris for Pasteur's treatment," he said, trying to look grave; but Dulcima threw back her pretty head and burst into an uncontrollable gale of laughter; and there we stood on the sidewalk, laughing and laughing while passing students grinned in sympathy and a cloaked policeman on the corner smiled discreetly and rubbed his chin.
That evening, after my progeny were safely asleep, casting a furtive glance around me I slunk off to my old café – the Café Jaune. I hadn't been there in over twenty years; I passed among crowded tables, skulked through the entrance, and slid into my old corner as though I had never missed an evening there.
They brought me a Bock. As I lifted the icy glass to my lips, over the foam I beheld Williams, smiling.
"Eh bien, mon vieux?" he said, pleasantly.
"By gad, Williams, this seems natural – especially with you sitting next."
"It sure does," he said.
I pointed toward a leather settee. "Archie used to sit over there with his best girl. Do you remember? And that was Dillon's seat – and Smithy and Palmyre – Oh, Lord! – And Seabury always had that other corner."… I paused, lost in happy reminiscences. "What has become of Jack Seabury?" I inquired.
"The usual."
"Married?"
"Oh, very much."
"Where does he live."
"In Philadelphia."
I mused for a while.
"So he's married, too," I said, thoughtfully. "Well – it's a funny life, isn't it, Williams."
"I've never seen a funnier. Seabury's marriage was funny too – I mean his courtship."
I looked up at Williams, suspiciously.
"Is this one of your professional literary stories?"
"It's a true one. What's the harm in my enveloping it in a professional glamour?"
"None," I said, resignedly; "go ahead."
"All right, mon vieux."
CHAPTER VIII
A MATTER OF PRONUNCIATION
This is a story of the Mystic Three – Fate, Chance, and Destiny; and what happens to people who trifle with them.
It begins with a young man running after a train. He had to run.
The connection at Westport Junction was normally a close one, but now, even before the incoming train had entirely stopped, the local on the other line began to move out, while the engineers of the two locomotives, leaning from their cab windows, exchanged sooty grins. It was none of their business – this squabble between the two roads which was making the term, "Junction," as applied to Westport, a snare and a derision.
So the roads squabbled, and young Seabury ran. Other passengers ran, too, amid the gibes of newsboys and the patronizing applause of station loafers.
He heard them; he also heard squeaks emitted by females whose highest speed was a dignified and scuttering waddle. Meanwhile he was running, and running hard through the falling snow; the ice under foot did not aid him; his overcoat and suit-case handicapped him; the passengers on the moving train smiled at him behind frosty windows.
One very thin man smoking a cigar rubbed his thumb on the pane in order to see better; he was laughing, and Seabury wished him evil.
There were only two cars, and the last one was already rolling by him. And at one of the windows of this car he saw a pretty girl in chinchilla furs watching him curiously. Then she also smiled.
It may have been the frank amusement of a pretty woman, and it may have been the sorrowful apathy of a red-nosed brakeman tying the loose end of the signal rope on the rear platform; doubtless one or the other spurred him to a desperate flying leap which landed him and his suit-case on the rear platform of the last car. And there he stuck, too mad to speak, until a whirlwind of snow and cinders drove him to shelter inside.
The choice of cars was limited to a combination baggage and smoker and a more fragrant passenger coach. He selected a place in the latter across the aisle from the attractive girl in chinchilla furs who had smiled at his misfortunes – not very maliciously. Now, as he seated himself, she glanced up at him without the slightest visible interest, and returned to her study of the winter landscape.
The car was hot; he was hot. Burning thoughts concerning the insolence of railroads made him hotter; the knowledge that he had furnished amusement for the passengers of two trains did not cool him.
Meanwhile everybody in the car had become tired of staring at him; a little boy across the aisle giggled his last giggle; several men resumed their newspapers; a shopgirl remembered her gum and began chewing it again.
A large mottled man with a damp moustache, seated opposite him, said: "Vell, Mister, you runned pooty quvick alretty py dot Vestport train!"
"It seems to me," observed Seabury, touching his heated face with his handkerchief, "that the public ought to do something."
"Yaw; der bublic it runs," said the large man, resuming his eyeglasses and holding his newspaper nearer to the window in the fading light.
Seabury smiled to himself and ventured to glance across the aisle in time to see the dawning smile in the blue eyes of his neighbor die out instantly as he turned. It was the second smile he had extinguished since his appearance aboard the train.
The conductor, a fat, unbuttoned, untidy official, wearing spectacles and a walrus moustache, came straddling down the aisle. He looked over the tops of his spectacles at Seabury doubtfully.
"I managed to jump aboard," explained the young man, smiling.
"Tickuts!" returned the conductor without interest.
"I haven't a ticket; I'll pay – "
"Sure," said the conductor; "vere you ged owid?"
"What?"
"Vere do you ged owid?"
"Oh, where do I get out? I'm going to Beverly – "
"Peverly? Sefenty-vive cends."
"Not to Peverly, to Beverly – "
"Yaw, Peverly – "
"No, no; Beverly! not Peverly – "
"Aind I said Peverly alretty? Sefenty-vive – "
"Look here; there's a Beverly and a Peverly on this line, and I don't want to go to Peverly and I do want to go to Beverly – "
"You go py Peverly und you don'd go py Beverly alretty! Sure! Sefenty-vive ce – "
The young man cast an exasperated glance across the aisle in time to catch a glimpse of two deliciously blue eyes suffused with mirth. And instantly, as before, the mirth died out. As an extinguisher of smiles he was a success, anyway; and he turned again to the placid conductor who was in the act of punching a ticket.
"Wait! Hold on! Don't do that until I get this matter straight! Now, do you understand where I wish to go?"
"You go py Peverly – "
"No, Beverly! Beverly! Beverly," he repeated in patiently studied accents.
The large mottled man with the damp moustache looked up gravely over his newspaper: "Yaw, der gonductor he also says Peverly."
"But Peverly isn't Beverly – "
"Aind I said it blenty enough dimes?" demanded the conductor, becoming irritable.
"But you haven't said it right yet!" insisted Seabury.
The conductor was growing madder and madder. "Peverly! Peverly!! Peverly!!! In Gottes Himmel, don'd you English yet alretty understandt? Sefenty-vive cends! Und" – here he jammed a seat check into the rattling windows-sill – "Und ven I sez Peverly it iss Peverly, und ven I sez Beverly it iss Beverly, und ven I sez sefenty-vive cends so iss it sefenty-vi – "
Seabury thrust three silver quarters at him; it was impossible to pursue the subject; madness lay in that direction. And when the affronted conductor, mumbling muffled indignation, had straddled off down the aisle, the young man took a cautious glance at the check in the window-sill. But on it was printed only, "Please show this to the conductor," so he got no satisfaction there. He had mislaid his time-table, too, and the large mottled man opposite had none, and began an endless and patient explanation which naturally resulted in nothing, as his labials were similar to the conductor's; even more so.
CHAPTER IX
FATE
Turning to the man behind him Seabury attempted to extract a little information, and the man was very affable and anxious to be of help, but all he could do was to nod and utter Teutonic gutturals through a bushy beard with a deep, buzzing sound, and Seabury sank back, beaten and dejected.
"Good Lord!" he muttered to himself, "is the entire Fatherland travelling on this accursed car! I – I've half a mind – "
He stole a doubtful sidelong glance at his blue-eyed neighbor across the aisle, but she was looking out of her own window this time, her cheeks buried in the fur of her chinchilla muff.
"And after all," he reflected, "if I ask her, she might turn out to be of the same nationality." But it was not exactly that which prevented him.
The train was slowing down; sundry hoarse toots from the locomotive indicated a station somewhere in the vicinity.
"Plue Pirt Lake! Change heraus für Bleasant Falley!" shouted the conductor, opening the forward door. He lingered long enough to glare balefully at Seabury, then, as nobody apparently cared either to get out at Blue Bird Lake or change for Pleasant Valley, he slammed the door and jerked the signal rope; the locomotive emitted a scornful Teutonic grunt; the train moved forward into the deepening twilight of the December night.
The snow was now falling more heavily – it was light enough to see that – a fine gray powder sifting down out of obscurity, blowing past the windows in misty streamers.
The bulky man opposite breathed on the pane, rubbed it with a thumb like a pincushion, and peered out.
"Der next station iss Beverly," he said.
"The next is Peverly?"
"No, der next iss Beverly; und der nextest iss Peverly.
"Then, if I am going to Beverly, I get out at the next station, don't I?" stammered the perplexed young fellow, trying to be polite.
The man became peevish. "Nun, wass ist es?" he growled. "I dell you Peverly und you say Beverly. Don'd I know vat it iss I say alretty?"
"Yes – but I don't – "
"Also, you ged owid vere you tam blease!" retorted the incensed passenger, and resumed his newspaper, hunching himself around to present nothing to Seabury except a vast expanse of neck and shoulder.
Seabury, painfully embarrassed, let it go at that. Probably the poor man had managed to enunciate the name of the station properly; no doubt the next stop was Beverly, after all. He was due there at 6.17. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past six already. The next stop must be Beverly – supposing the train to be on time.
And already the guttural warning of the locomotive sounded from the darkness ahead; already he sensed the gritting resistance of the brakes.
Permitting himself a farewell and perfectly inoffensive glance across the aisle, he perceived her of the blue eyes and chinchilla furs preparing for departure; and, what he had not before noticed, her maid in the seat behind her, gathering a dainty satchel, umbrella, and suit-case marked C. G.
So she was going to Beverly, too! He hoped she might be bound for the Christmas Eve frolic at the Austins'. It was perfectly possible – in fact, probable.
He was a young man whose optimism colored his personal wishes so vividly that sometimes what he desired became presently, in his imagination, a charming and delightful probability. And already his misgivings concerning the proper name of the next station had vanished. He wanted Beverly to be the next station, and already it was, for him. Also, he had quite made up his mind that she of the chinchillas was bound for the Austins'.
A cynical blast from the locomotive; a jerking pull of brakes, and, from the forward smoker, entered the fat conductor.
"Beverly! Beverly!" he shouted.
So he, too, had managed to master his P's and B's, concluded the young man, smiling to himself as he rose, invested himself with his heavy coat, and picked up his suit-case.
The young lady of the chinchillas had already left the car, followed by her maid, before he stepped into the aisle ready for departure.
A shadow of misgiving fell upon him when, glancing politely at his fellow-passenger, he encountered only a huge sneer, and concluded that the nod of courtesy was superfluous.
Also he hesitated as he passed the fat conductor, who was glaring at him, mouth agape – hesitated a moment only, then, realizing the dreadful possibilities of reopening the subject, swallowed his question in silence.
"It's got to be Beverly, now," he thought, making his way to the snowy platform and looking about him for some sign of a conveyance which might be destined for him. There were several sleighs and depot-wagons there – a number of footmen bustling about in furs.
"I'll just glance at the name of the station to be sure," he thought to himself, peering up through the thickly descending snow where the name of the station ought to be. And, as he stepped out to get a good view, he backed into a fur-robed footman, who touched his hat in hasty apology.
"Oh, Bailey! Is that you?" said Seabury, relieved to encounter one of Mrs. Austin's men.
"Yes, sir. Mr. Seabury, sir! Were you expected – ?"
"Certainly," nodded the young man gayly, abandoning his suit-case to the footman and following him to a big depot-sleigh.
And there, sure enough, was his lady of the chinchillas, nestling under the robes to her pretty chin, and her maid on the box with the coachman – a strangely fat coachman – no doubt a new one to replace old Martin.
When Seabury came up the young lady turned and looked at him, and he took off his hat politely, and she acknowledged his presence very gravely and he seated himself decorously, and the footman swung to the rumble.
Then the chiming silver sleigh-bells rang out through the snow, the magnificent pair of plumed horses swung around the circle under the bleared lights of the station and away they speeded into snowy darkness.
A decent interval of silence elapsed before he considered himself at liberty to use a traveller's privilege. Then he said something sufficiently commonplace to permit her the choice of conversing or remaining silent. She hesitated; she had never been particularly wedded to silence. Besides, she was scarcely twenty – much too young to be wedded to anything. So she said something, with perfect composure, which left the choice to him. And his choice was obvious.
"I have no idea how far it is; have you?" he asked.
"Yes," she said coolly.
"This is a jolly sleigh," he continued with unimpaired cheerfulness.
She thought it comfortable. And for a while the conversation clung so closely around the sleigh that it might have been run over had not he dragged it into another path.
"Isn't it amazing how indifferent railroads are to the convenience of their passengers?"
She turned her blue eyes on him; there was the faintest glimmer in their depths.
"I know you saw me running after that train," he said, laughingly attempting to break the ice.
"I?"
"Certainly. And it amused you, I think."
She raised her eyebrows a trifle. "What is there amusing about that?"
"But you did smile – at least I thought so."
Evidently she had no comment to offer. She was hard to talk to. But he tried again.
"The fact is, I never expected to catch your – that train. It was only when I saw – saw" – he floundered on the verge of saying "you," but veered off hastily – "when I saw that brakeman's expression of tired contempt, I simply sailed through the air like a – a – like a – one of those – er you know – "
"Do you mean kangaroos?" she ventured so listlessly that the quick flush of chagrin on his face died out again; because it was quite impossible that such infantine coldness and candour could be secretly trifling with his dignity.
"It was a long jump," he concluded gayly, "but I did some jumping at Harvard and I made it and managed to hold on."
"You were very fortunate," she said, smiling for the first time.
And, looking at her, he thought he was; and he admitted it so blandly that he overdid the part. But he didn't know that.
"I fancy," he continued, "that everybody on that train except you and I were Germans. Such a type as sat opposite me – "
"Which car were you in?" she asked simply.