Aristide Pujol started life on his own account as a _chasseur_ in a Nice
cafe--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 cafe,
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 dragon-fly 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, Aristide's
history is a category of terminations.
If the head mistress 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 quaintnesses of the French tongue. But _dis
aliter visum_. The gods always saw wrong-headedly otherwise in the case
of Aristide. A weak-minded governess--and in a governess a sense of
humour and of novelty is always a sign of a weak mind--played dragon
during Aristide's lessons. She appreciated his method, which was
colloquial. The colloquial Aristide was jocular. His lessons therefore
were a giggling joy from beginning to end. He imparted to his pupils
delicious knowledge. _En avez-vous des-z-homards? Oh, les sales betes,
elles ont du poil aux pattes_, which, being translated, is: "Have you
any lobsters? Oh, the dirty animals, they have hair on their feet"--a
catch phrase which, some years ago, added greatly to the gaiety of
Paris, but in which I must confess to seeing no gleam of wit--became the
historic property of the school. He recited to them, till they were
word-perfect, a music-hall ditty of the early 'eighties--_Sur le bi,
sur le banc, sur le bi du bout du banc_, and delighted them with
dissertations on Mme. Yvette Guilbert's earlier repertoire. But for him
they would have gone to their lives' end without knowing that _pognon_
meant money; _rouspetance_, assaulting the police; _thune_, a five-franc
piece; and _bouffer_, to take 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! ta soeur_, was the purest
Montmartre; also _Fich'-moi la paix, mon petit_, and _Tu as un toupet,
toi_; and the delectable locution, _Allons etrangler un perroquet_ (let
us strangle a parrot), employed by Apaches when inviting each other to
drink a glass of absinthe, 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 mid-term 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-atte-Bowe, to be
translated by _Comment vous portez-vous, ma chere?_ was rendered by most
of the senior scholars _Eh, ma vieille, ca boulotte?_ One innocent and
anachronistic damsel, writing on the execution of Charles I., declared
that he _cracha dans le panier_ 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 "_al_" that took "_s_" in the plural, no one knew anything at all
about the defective verb _echoir_, and the orthography of the school
would have disgraced a kindergarten. The head mistress suspected a lack
of method in the teaching of M. Pujol, 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. M. Pujol, his
bright eyes agleam 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 etait saoul comme un porc_," 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 head mistress, indignant
majesty, strode up the room.
"M. Pujol, you have a strange way of giving French lessons."
"I believe, madame," said he, with a polite bow, "in interesting my
pupils in their studies."
"Pupils have to be taught, not interested," said the head mistress.
"Will you kindly put the class through some irregular verbs."
So for the remainder of the lesson Aristide, under the freezing eyes of
the head mistress, 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.
* * * * *
We find him, then, one miserable December evening, standing on the
arrival platform of Euston Station (the academy was near Manchester), an
unwonted statue of dubiety. At his feet lay his meagre valise; in 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'
waterproofs 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, valise in hand, into the pouring rain? He hesitated.
"_Sacre mille cochons! Quel chien de climat!_" he muttered.
A smart footman standing by turned quickly and touched his hat.
"Beg pardon, sir; I'm from Mr. Smith."
"I'm glad to hear it, my friend," said Aristide.
"You're the French gentleman from Manchester?"
"Decidedly," said Aristide.
[Illustration: STANDING ON THE ARRIVAL PLATFORM OF EUSTON STATION]
"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 footman held invitingly open the door of a cosy brougham.
Aristide paused for the fraction of a second. Who was this hospitable
Mr. Smith?
"Bah!" said he 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? _Tiens_, thought he, there were
two little Miss Smiths at the academy; he had pitied them because they
had chilblains, freckles, and perpetual colds 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. And _tiens!_ there was even
a hot-water can on the floor of the brougham. "He thinks of everything,
that man," said Aristide. "I feel I am 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 footman opened the
door for him to alight and escorted him up the front steps. A neat
parlour-maid received him in a comfortably-furnished hall and took his
hat and greatcoat and magnificent bouquet.
"Mr. Smith hasn't come back yet from the City, sir; but Miss Christabel
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, M. le Baron. I was wondering whether Thomas would spot
you. I'm so glad he did. You see, neither 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 Christabel 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 Christabel 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 Nights' enchantment of the
change from his lonely and shabby bed-sitting-room in the Rusholme Road
to this fragrant palace with princess and all to keep him company! He
watched the firelight dancing through her hair, the dainty play of
laughter over her face, and decided that the brougham had transported
him to Bagdad 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, businesslike person."
"Bah!" said Aristide. "A princess of a charity bazaar! I was talking of
the princess in a fairytale. They are the only real ones."
"Do you know," said 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 coloured 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 Provencal 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?"
"Your----?"
"My fiance! There's his photograph on the table beside you. He is six
foot one, and so jealous!" she laughed again.
"The Turk!" cried Aristide, his swiftly-conceived romance crumbling into
dust. Then he brightened up. "But when this six feet of muscle and
egotism is absent, surely other poor mortals can glean a smile?"
"You will observe that I'm not frowning," said Miss Christabel. "But you
must not call my fiance a Turk, for he's a very charming fellow whom I
hope you'll like very much."