You have seen how Aristide, by attaching himself to the Hotel du Soleil
et de l'Ecosse as a kind of glorified courier, had founded the Agence
Pujol. As he, personally, was the Agence, and the Agence was he, it
happened that when he was not in attendance at the hotel, the Agence
faded into space, and when he made his appearance in the vestibule and
hung up his placard by the bureau, the Agence at once burst again into
the splendour of existence. Apparently the fitful career of the Agence
Pujol lasted some years. Whenever a chance of more remunerative
employment turned up, Aristide took it and dissolved the Agence.
Whenever outrageous fortune chivied him with slings and arrows penniless
to Paris, there was always the Agence waiting to be resuscitated.
It was during one of these periodic flourishings of the Agence Pujol
that Aristide met the Ducksmiths.
Business was slack, few guests were at the hotel, and of those few none
desired to be personally conducted to the Louvre or Notre Dame or the
monument in the Place de la Bastille. They mostly wore the placid
expression of folks engaged in business affairs instead of the worried
look of pleasure-seekers.
"My good Bocardon," said Aristide, lounging by the bureau and addressing
his friend the manager, "this is becoming desperate. In another minute I
shall take you out by main force and show you the Pont Neuf."
At that moment the door of the stuffy salon opened, and a travelling
Briton, whom Aristide had not seen before, advanced to the bureau and
inquired his way to the Madeleine. Aristide turned on him like a flash.
"Sir," said he, extracting documents from his pockets with lightning
rapidity, "nothing would give me greater pleasure than to conduct you
thither. My card. My tariff. My advertisement." He pointed to the
placard. "I am the managing director of the Agence Pujol, under the
special patronage of this hotel. I undertake all travelling
arrangements, from the Moulin Rouge to the Pyramids, and, as you see, my
charges are moderate."
The Briton, holding the documents in a pudgy hand, looked at the
swift-gestured director with portentous solemnity. Then, with equal
solemnity, he looked at Bocardon.
"Monsieur Ducksmith," said the latter, "you can repose every confidence
in Monsieur Aristide Pujol."
"Umph!" said Mr. Ducksmith.
After another solemn inspection of Aristide, he stuck a pair of
gold-rimmed glasses on his fleshy nose and perused the documents. He was
a fat, heavy man of about fifty years of age, and his scanty hair was
turning grey. His puffy cheeks hung jowl-like, giving him the appearance
of some odd dog--a similarity greatly intensified by the eye-sockets,
the lower lids of which were dragged down in the middle, showing the red
like a bloodhound's; but here the similarity ended, for the man's eyes,
dull and blue, had the unspeculative fixity of a rabbit's. His mouth,
small and weak, dribbled away at the corners into the jowls which, in
their turn, melted into two or three chins. He was decently dressed in
grey tweeds, and wore a diamond ring on his little finger.
"Umph!" said he, at last; and went back to the salon.
As soon as the door closed behind him Aristide sprang into an attitude
of indignation.
"Did you ever see such a bear! If I ever saw a bigger one I would eat
him without salt or pepper. _Mais nom d'un chien_, such people ought to
be made into sausages!"
"_Flegme britannique!_" laughed Bocardon.
Half an hour passed, and Mr. Ducksmith made no reappearance from the
salon. In the forlorn hope of a client Aristide went in after him. He
found Mr. Ducksmith, glasses on nose, reading a newspaper, and a plump,
black-haired lady, with an expressionless face, knitting a grey woollen
sock. Why they should be spending their first morning--and a crisp,
sunny morning, too--in Paris in the murky staleness of this awful little
salon, Aristide could not imagine. As he entered, Mr. Ducksmith regarded
him vacantly over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses.
"I have looked in," said Aristide, with his ingratiating smile, "to see
whether you are ready to go to the Madeleine."
"Madeleine?" the lady inquired, softly, pausing in her knitting.
"Madame," Aristide came forward, and, hand on heart, made her the lowest
of bows. "Madame, have I the honour of speaking to Madame Ducksmith?
Enchanted, madame, to make your acquaintance," he continued, after a
grunt from Mr. Ducksmith had assured him of the correctness of his
conjecture. "I am Monsieur Aristide Pujol, director of the Agence Pujol,
and my poor services are absolutely at your disposal."
He drew himself up, twisted his moustache, and met her eyes--they were
rather sad and tired--with the roguish mockery of his own. She turned to
her husband.
"Are you thinking of going to the Madeleine, Bartholomew?"
"I am, Henrietta," said he. "I have decided to do it. And I have also
decided to put ourselves in the charge of this gentleman. Mrs. Ducksmith
and I are accustomed to all the conveniences of travel--I may say that
we are great travellers--and I leave it to you to make the necessary
arrangements. I prefer to travel at so much per head per day."
He spoke in a wheezy, solemn monotone, from which all elements of life
and joy seemed to have been eliminated. His wife's voice, though softer
in timbre, was likewise devoid of colour.
"My husband finds that it saves us from responsibilities," she remarked.
"And over-charges, and the necessity of learning foreign languages,
which at our time of life would be difficult. During all our travels we
have not been to Paris before, owing to the impossibility of finding a
personally-conducted tour of an adequate class."
"Then, my dear sir," cried Aristide, "it is Providence itself that has
put you in the way of the Agence Pujol. I will now conduct you to the
Madeleine without the least discomfort or danger."
"Put on your hat, Henrietta," said Mr. Ducksmith, "while this gentleman
and I discuss terms."
Mrs. Ducksmith gathered up her knitting and retired, Aristide dashing
to the door to open it for her. This gallantry surprised her ever so
little, for a faint flush came into her cheek and the shadow of a smile
into her eyes.
"I wish you to understand, Mr. Pujol," said Mr. Ducksmith, "that being,
I may say, a comparatively rich man, I can afford to pay for certain
luxuries; but I made a resolution many years ago, which has stood me in
good stead during my business life, that I would never be cheated. You
will find me liberal but just."
He was as good as his word. Aristide, who had never in his life
exploited another's wealth to his own advantage, suggested certain
terms, on the basis of so much per head per day, which Mr. Ducksmith
declared, with a sigh of relief, to be perfectly satisfactory.
"Perhaps," said he, after further conversation, "you will be good enough
to schedule out a month's railway tour through France, and give me an
inclusive estimate for the three of us. As I say, Mrs. Ducksmith and I
are great travellers--we have been to Norway, to Egypt, to Morocco and
the Canaries, to the Holy Land, to Rome, and lovely Lucerne--but we find
that attention to the trivial detail of travel militates against our
enjoyment."
"My dear sir," said Aristide, "trust in me, and your path and that of
the charming Mrs. Ducksmith will be strewn with roses."
Whereupon Mrs. Ducksmith appeared, arrayed for walking out, and
Aristide, having ordered a cab, drove with them to the Madeleine. They
alighted in front of the majestic flight of steps. Mr. Ducksmith stared
at the classical portico supported on its Corinthian columns with his
rabbit-like, unspeculative gaze--he had those filmy blue eyes that never
seem to wink--and after a moment or two turned away.
"Umph!" said he.
Mrs. Ducksmith, dutiful and silent, turned away also.
"This sacred edifice," Aristide began, in his best cicerone manner, "was
built, after a classic model, by the great Napoleon, as a Temple of
Fame. It was afterwards used as a church. You will observe--and, if you
care to, you can count, as a conscientious American lady did last
week--the fifty-six Corinthian columns. You will see they are Corinthian
by the acanthus leaves on the capitals. For the vulgar, who have no
architectural knowledge, I have _memoria technica_ for the instant
recognition of the three orders--Cabbages, Corinthian; horns, Ionic;
anything else, Doric. We will now mount the steps and inspect the
interior."
He was dashing off in his eager fashion, when Mr. Ducksmith laid a
detaining hand on his arm.
"No," said he, solemnly. "I disapprove of Popish interiors. Take us to
the next place."
[Illustration: HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE POINTED OUT THE MARVELS OF KUBLA
KHAN'S PLEASURE-DOME TO A COUPLE OF GUINEA-PIGS]
He entered the waiting victoria. His wife meekly followed.
"I suppose the Louvre is the next place?" said Aristide.
"I leave it to you," said Mr. Ducksmith.
Aristide gave the order to the cabman and took the little seat in the
cab facing his employers. On the way down the Rue Royale and the Rue de
Rivoli he pointed out the various buildings of interest--Maxim's, the
Cercle Royal, the Ministere de la Marine, the Hotel Continental. Two
expressionless faces, two pairs of unresponsive eyes, met his merry
glance. He might as well have pointed out the marvels of Kubla Khan's
pleasure-dome to a couple of guinea-pigs.
The cab stopped at the entrance to the galleries of the Louvre. They
entered and walked up the great staircase on the turn of which the
Winged Victory stands, with the wind of God in her vesture, proclaiming
to each beholder the deathless, ever-soaring, ever-conquering spirit of
man, and heralding the immortal glories of the souls, wind-swept
likewise by the wind of God, that are enshrined in the treasure-houses
beyond.
"There!" said Aristide.
"Umph! No head," said Mr. Ducksmith, passing it by with scarcely a
glance.
"Would it cost very much to get a new one?" asked Mrs. Ducksmith,
timidly. She was three or four paces behind her spouse.
"It would cost the blood and tears and laughter of the human race," said
Aristide.
("That was devilish good, wasn't it?" remarked Aristide, when telling me
this story. He always took care not to hide his light under the least
possibility of a bushel.)
The Ducksmiths looked at him in their lacklustre way, and allowed
themselves to be guided into the picture-galleries, vaguely hearing
Aristide's comments, scarcely glancing at the pictures, and
manifesting no sign of interest in anything whatever. From the Louvre
they drove to Notre Dame, where the same thing happened. The venerable
pile, standing imperishable amid the vicissitudes of centuries (the
phrase was that of the director of the Agence Pujol), stirred in their
bosoms no perceptible emotion. Mr. Ducksmith grunted and declined to
enter; Mrs. Ducksmith said nothing.
As with pictures and cathedrals, so it was with their food at lunch.
Beyond a solemn statement to the effect that in their quality of
practised travellers they made a point of eating the food and drinking
the wine of the country, Mr. Ducksmith did not allude to the meal. At
any rate, thought Aristide, they don't clamour for underdone chops and
tea. So far they were human. Nor did they maintain an awful silence
during the repast. On the contrary, Mr. Ducksmith loved to talk--in a
dismal, pompous way--chiefly of British politics. His method of
discourse was to place himself in the position of those in authority and
to declare what he would do in any given circumstances. Now, unless the
interlocutor adopts the same method and declares what _he_ would do,
conversation is apt to become one-sided. Aristide, having no notion of a
policy should he find himself exercising the functions of the British
Chancellor of the Exchequer, cheerfully tried to change the ground of
debate.
"What would you do, Mr. Ducksmith, if you were King of England?"
"I should try to rule the realm like a Christian statesman," replied Mr.
Ducksmith.
"I should have a devil of a time!" said Aristide.
"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Ducksmith.
"I should have a--ah, I see--_pardon_. I should----" He looked from
one paralyzing face to the other, and threw out his arms. "_Parbleu!_"
said he, "I should decapitate your Mrs. Grundy, and make it compulsory
for bishops to dance once a week in Trafalgar Square. _Tiens!_ I would
have it a capital offence for any English cook to prepare hashed
mutton without a license, and I would banish all the bakers of the
kingdom to Siberia--ah! your English bread, which you have to eat
stale so as to avoid a horrible death!--and I would open two hundred
thousand _cafes_--_mon Dieu!_ how thirsty I have been there!--and I
would make every English work-girl do her hair properly, and I would
ordain that everybody should laugh three times a day, under pain of
imprisonment for life."
"I am afraid, Mr. Pujol," remarked Mr. Ducksmith, seriously, "you would
not be acting as a constitutional monarch. There is such a thing as the
British Constitution, which foreigners are bound to admire, even though
they may not understand."
"To be a king must be a great responsibility," said Mrs. Ducksmith.
"Madame," said Aristide, "you have uttered a profound truth." And to
himself he murmured, though he should not have done so, "_Nom de Dieu!
Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_"
After lunch they drove to Versailles, which they inspected in the same
apathetic fashion; then they returned to the hotel, where they
established themselves for the rest of the day in the airless salon, Mr.
Ducksmith reading English newspapers and his wife knitting a grey
woollen sock.
"_Mon vieux!_" said Aristide to Bocardon, "they are people of a
nightmare. They are automata endowed with the faculty of digestion. _Ce
sont des gens invraisemblables._"
Paris providing them, apparently, with no entertainment, they started,
after a couple of days, _Aristide duce et auspice Pujol_, on their
railway tour through France, to Aristide a pilgrimage of unimaginable
depression. They began with Chartres, continued with the Chateaux of the
Loire, and began to work their way south. Nothing that Aristide could do
roused them from their apathy. They were exasperatingly docile, made few
complaints, got up, entrained, detrained, fed, excursioned, slept, just
as they were bidden. But they looked at nothing, enjoyed nothing (save
perhaps English newspapers and knitting), and uttered nothing by way of
criticism or appreciation when Aristide attempted to review the wonders
through which they had passed. They did not care to know the history,
authentic or Pujolic, of any place they visited; they were impressed by
no scene of grandeur, no corner of exquisite beauty. To go on and on, in
a dull, non-sentient way, so long as they were spared all forethought,
all trouble, all afterthought, seemed to be their ideal of travel.
Sometimes Aristide, after a fruitless effort to capture their interest,
would hold his head, wondering whether he or the Ducksmith couple were
insane. It was a dragon-fly personally conducting two moles through a
rose-garden.
Once only, during the early part of their journey, did a gleam of
joyousness pierce the dull glaze of Mr. Ducksmith's eyes. He had
procured from the bookstall of a station a pile of English newspapers,
and was reading them in the train, while his wife knitted the
interminable sock. Suddenly he folded a _Daily Telegraph_, and handed
it over to Aristide so that he should see nothing but a half-page
advertisement. The great capitals leaped to Aristide's eyes:--
"DUCKSMITH'S DELICATE JAMS."
"I am _the_ Ducksmith," said he. "I started and built up the business.
When I found that I could retire, I turned it into a limited liability
company, and now I am free and rich and able to enjoy the advantages of
foreign travel."
Mrs. Ducksmith started, sighed, and dropped a stitch.
"Did you also make pickles?" asked Aristide.
"I did manufacture pickles, but I made my name in jam. In the trade you
will find it an honoured one."
"It is that in every nursery in Europe," Aristide declared, with polite
hyperbole.
"I have done my best to deserve my reputation," said Mr. Ducksmith, as
impervious to flattery as to impressions of beauty.
"_Pecaire!_" said Aristide to himself, "how can I galvanize these
corpses?"
As the soulless days went by this problem grew to be Aristide's main
solicitude. He felt strangled, choked, borne down by an intolerable
weight. What could he do to stir their vitality? Should he fire off
pistols behind them, just to see them jump? But would they jump? Would
not Mr. Ducksmith merely turn his rabbit-eyes, set in their bloodhound
sockets, vacantly on him, and assume that the detonations were part of
the tour's programme? Could he not fill him up with conflicting
alcohols, and see what inebriety would do for him? But Mr. Ducksmith
declined insidious potations. He drank only at meal-times, and
sparingly. Aristide prayed that some Thais might come along, cast her
spell upon him, and induce him to wink. He himself was powerless. His
raciest stories fell on dull ears; none of his jokes called forth a
smile. At last, having taken them to nearly all the historic chateaux of
Touraine, without eliciting one cry of admiration, he gave Mr. Ducksmith
up in despair and devoted his attention to the lady.
Mrs. Ducksmith parted her smooth black hair in the middle and fastened
it in a knob at the back of her head. Her clothes were good and new, but
some desolate dressmaker had contrived to invest them with an air of
hopeless dowdiness. At her bosom she wore a great brooch, containing
intertwined locks of a grandfather and grandmother long since defunct.
Her mind was as drearily equipped as her person. She had a vague idea
that they were travelling in France; but if Aristide had told her that
it was Japan she would have meekly accepted the information. She had no
opinions. Still she was a woman, and Aristide, firm in his conviction
that when it comes to love-making all women are the same, proceeded
forthwith to make love to her.
"Madame," said he, one morning--she was knitting in the vestibule of the
Hotel du Faisan at Tours, Mr. Ducksmith being engaged, as usual, in the
salon with his newspapers--"how much more charming that beautiful grey
dress would be if it had a spot of colour."
His audacious hand placed a deep crimson rose against her corsage, and
he stood away at arm's length, his head on one side, judging the effect.
"Magnificent! If madame would only do me the honour to wear it."
Mrs. Ducksmith took the flower hesitatingly.
"I'm afraid my husband does not like colour," she said.
"He must be taught," cried Aristide. "You must teach him. I must teach
him. Let us begin at once. Here is a pin."
He held the pin delicately between finger and thumb, and controlled her
with his roguish eyes. She took the pin and fixed the rose to her dress.
"I don't know what Mr. Ducksmith will say."
"What he ought to say, madame, is 'Bountiful Providence, I thank Thee
for giving me such a beautiful wife.'"
Mrs. Ducksmith blushed and, to conceal her face, bent it over her
resumed knitting. She made woman's time-honoured response.
"I don't think you ought to say such things, Mr. Pujol."
"Ah, madame," said he, lowering his voice; "I have tried not to; but,
_que voulez-vous_, it was stronger than I. When I see you going about
like a little grey mouse"--the lady weighed at least twelve stone--"you,
who ought to be ravishing the eyes of mankind, I feel indignation
here"--he thumped his chest; "my Provencal heart is stirred. It is
enough to make one weep."
"I don't quite understand you, Mr. Pujol," she said, dropping stitches
recklessly.
"Ah, madame," he whispered--and the rascal's whisper on such occasions
could be very seductive--"that I will never believe."
"I am too old to dress myself up in fine clothes," she murmured.
"That's an illusion," said he, with a wide-flung gesture, "that will
vanish at the first experiment."
Mr. Ducksmith emerged from the salon, _Daily Telegraph_ in hand. Mrs.
Ducksmith shot a timid glance at him and the knitting needles clicked
together nervously. But the vacant eyes of the heavy man seemed no more
to note the rose on her bosom than they noted any point of beauty in
landscape or building.
Aristide went away chuckling, highly diverted by the success of his
first effort. He had touched some hidden springs of feeling. Whatever
might happen, at any rate, for the remainder of the tour he would not
have to spend his emotional force in vain attempts to knock sparks out
of a jelly-fish. He noticed with delight that at dinner that evening
Mrs. Ducksmith, still wearing the rose, had modified the rigid sweep
of her hair from the mid-parting. It gave just a wavy hint of
coquetry. He made her a little bow and whispered, "Charming!"
Whereupon she coloured and dropped her eyes. And during the meal,
while Mr. Ducksmith discoursed on bounty-fed sugar, his wife and
Aristide exchanged, across the table, the glances of conspirators.
After dinner he approached her.
"Madame, may I have the privilege of showing you the moon of Touraine?"