"Naturally. And I told her that you were my English patron, and would
give me four thousand francs as a wedding present if I accompanied you
to your agent's at Montpellier, where you could draw the money. Ah! But
she was suspicious! Yesterday I borrowed a bicycle. A friend left it in
the courtyard. I thought, 'I will creep out at dead of night, when
everyone's asleep, and once on my _petite bicyclette, bonsoir la
compagnie_.' But, would you believe it? When I had dressed and crept
down, and tried to mount the bicycle, I found both tyres had been
punctured in a hundred places with the point of a pair of scissors. What
do you think of that, eh? Ah, _la, la!_ it has been a narrow escape.
When you invited her to accompany us to Montpellier my heart was in my
mouth."
"It would have served you right," I said, "if she had accepted."
He laughed as though, instead of not having a penny, he had not a care
in the world. Accustomed to the geometrical conduct of my well-fed
fellow-Britons, who map out their lives by rule and line, I had no
measure whereby to gauge this amazing and inconsequential person. In one
way he had acted abominably. To leave an affianced bride in the lurch in
this heartless manner was a most ungentlemanly proceeding. On the other
hand, an unscrupulous adventurer would have married the woman for her
money and chanced the consequences. In the tussle between Perseus and
the Gorgon the odds are all in favour of Perseus. Mercury and Minerva,
the most sharp-witted of the gods, are helping him all the time--to say
nothing of the fact that Perseus starts out by being a notoriously
handsome fellow. So a handsome rogue can generally wheedle an elderly,
ugly wife into opening her money-bags, and, if successful, leads the
enviable life of a fighting-cock. It was very much to his credit that
this kind of life was not to the liking of Aristide Pujol.
[Illustration: "I FOUND BOTH TYRES HAD BEEN PUNCTURED IN A
HUNDRED PLACES"]
Indeed, speaking from affectionate knowledge of the man, I can declare
that the position in which he, like many a better man, had placed
himself was intolerable. Other men of equal sensitiveness would have
extricated themselves in a more commonplace fashion; but the dramatic
appealed to my rascal, and he has often plumed himself on his calculated
_coup de theatre_ at the fork of the roads. He was delighted with it.
Even now I sometimes think that Aristide Pujol will never grow up.
"There's one thing I don't understand," said I, "and that is your
astonishing influence over the populace at Aigues-Mortes. You came upon
them like a firework--a devil-among-the-tailors--and everybody,
gendarmes and victim included, became as tame as sheep. How was it?"
He laughed. "I said you were my very old and dear friend and patron, a
great English duke."
"I don't quite see how that explanation satisfied the pig-headed old
gentleman whom I knocked down."
"Oh, that," said Aristide Pujol, with a look of indescribable
drollery--"that was my old father."