COUCON.
Goutran had entire faith in Carmen, and he was now anxious to
communicate with her. He called the former Zouave.
"Coucon," he said, "do you know where Monsieur Laisangy lives?"
"The great banker? Oh! yes, sir, everybody knows that."
"Then without losing one minute, I want you to go to his hotel. This
note must be given to his daughter at once."
"To Miss Carmen, sir?"
"Precisely; but understand me--no one else must see it. This note must
be given into her hands."
"I understand, sir; it shall be done. There is nothing I would not do,
sir, to repair my own stupidity."
Coucon started off. To go to the hotel and ask for Miss Carmen was
simple enough, but he took it into his head that it would be better if
no one knew that he was there. He thought he would examine the premises
before he decided on his course of action.
When he reached the hotel, to his great surprise he found the doors wide
open and the courtyard blazing with lights. Carriage after carriage was
driving up, and stopping at the vestibule.
"Upon my life," said Coucon, "this is bad enough."
He stepped into a wine-shop, and asked for a bottle of wine; as he drank
it he said to himself: "How the deuce am I to see Miss Carmen? She is in
the salon receiving her guests. Of course, she won't come into the
anteroom to get a _billet doux_, but if the mountain won't come to
Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain, which means, that if Miss
Carmen won't come to me in the anteroom, I must go to her!"
At this moment a Chasseur d'Afrique entered the wine-shop.
"Will you have the kindness to tell me," he asked, of the shop-keeper,
"where I shall find the hotel of a rich banker about here? Laisangy, I
think, is the name."
"Almost opposite--where all those carriages stand."
"Ah! thanks!" And as the soldier turned round he saw Coucon.
The recognition was mutual, and the two former companions fell into each
other's arms.
"Galaret!" cried Coucon.
"Yes. And now let us have a glass."
"Can't stop, have a commission to perform!"
Nevertheless, Coucon did stop to drink a little, and to gossip. "When
did you come to Paris?" he asked.
"This very day, in the escort of Mohammed-Ben-Omar, a sort of Pasha, you
know, and to-night he slipped on the stairs and wrenched his ankle. Take
another glass, friend. Well, as I was saying, he was asked to this
_soiree_ at the banker's and had to write a refusal. As he lies on his
sofa, and is likely to lie there for some little time, this note I must
deliver."
Coucon did not seem to hear what his friend was saying, but suddenly
exclaimed to an innocent looking bourgeois, at another table:
"What are you staring at?"
In vain did the man stammer that he was not even looking at them. One
word led to another until a hot quarrel was in progress, the police were
called in, and Galaret was arrested.
"Give me your note," said Coucon, in the most obliging manner, "I will
see that it is delivered."
And he dashed out of the shop with suspicious alacrity. "You are a fool,
Coucon," he said to himself, "if you don't manage to deliver your own
note at the same time!"
Our readers must not suppose that Coucon was so simple as to think of
penetrating the Laisangy salons, even with the note he had obtained in
so abominable a manner from his friend. The plan he had devised was more
audacious and more sure. Ten minutes later the former Zouave entered the
shop of a costumer in the Rue de Peletere. And in five minutes more he
sallied forth a magnificent Bedouin, draped in white and wearing an
enormous turban. He called out to the astonished coachman:
"Rue de Rivoli! and drive fast!"