I
Theodore Bugg had made England what she is. The last forty-two years
had elevated him from errand-boy to biggest retail grocer in the
Midlands. Twenty-eight years of wedded happiness had left him with a
clear conscience, a five-year old grave to keep in order “To the memory
of my beloved relict,” as he had written until the clerk suggested a
trifling alteration, and a strapping daughter, just turned twenty.
I wish I could stop here. But there is a rough side to every canvas,
and Theodore Bugg had forgotten all about England, and what she is,
and how he had made her. Or, if the good work was going on, it was
sub-conscious. He was standing by the gilded statue of Jeanne d’Arc,
his mouth wide open, his Baedeker limp in his perspiring hand. “She’s
riding astride!” The molten madness throbbed in his brain. “She’s got
man’s clothes on!”
The shocking truth must out; Theodore Bugg had come to Paris for
Pleasure!
He had only been able to spare two days, the Sunday and Monday of
Whitsuntide. He had travelled by the night boat on Saturday, arriving
in Paris on Sunday morning--the first step downward! The air of Paris
intoxicated him; the Grands Boulevards ate into his moral fibre like
a dragon chewing butter; and though he had not actually “been in”
anywhere, he felt the atmosphere of the music-halls as Ulysses heard
the Sirens. He was fortunately tied to the mast of his ignorance of
French and his fear of asking anybody such a peculiar question, or he
would certainly have discovered and visited the Moulin Rouge.
As it was, Joan of Arc was very much more than was good for him. He
stared, fascinated as by a basilisk, his eyes starting further and
further from his head as his moral sense dragged his body backwards
along the Rue de Rivoli. By this means he cannoned into a worthy
Frenchman (who refused to take him seriously) and so was shocked into
himself.
He pulled out his watch. Only an hour and a half to catch his train.
Just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, too. What a shame! He
couldn’t even send a telegram without letting somebody know where
he was--and at home they supposed him to be visiting a business
acquaintance in Shropshire.
I’ll have a mementum, thought he, if I die for it. I’ll--I don’t care.
I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb--I’ll go the whole hog. I
know there’s shops about here.
So, turning, in his excitement and determination, he saw--when you
invoke the devil he is usually half-way to you--a shop window full of
photographs of the pictures and sculptures of the Louvre. He looked up
and down the street--the sight of a top hat might have saved him even
at the eleventh hour. But no! Nothing that looked in the least like an
Englishman, even to his overheated fear of discovery. He peered and
dodged about for a little like a man stalking dangerous game, and then,
with sudden stealth, his back to the door, pushed down the lever and
slid into the shop.
“Avvy-voo photographiay?” he said hurriedly, with averted face.
“Certainly, sir,” replied the shopkeeper in perfect English. “What
does Monsieur require? Photographs of Paris, of Fontainebleau, of the
Louvre, of Versailles?”
But English would not serve the turn of Theodore Bugg. He nearly bolted
from the shop. An English voice--it was almost Discovery!
“Kelker shows,” he muttered doggedly enough, though his head hung
lower than ever. “Kelker shows tray sho. Voo savvy--tray tray sho--par
propre!”
The shopman, not yet old enough to master his disgust at the familiar
incident, brought forward several books of photographs.
“Perhaps Monsieur will find there what he requires,” he said coldly.
Furtively and hurriedly, his glance divided between the forbidden
book and the shop-door, his only safeguard from intrusion the thought
that nobody who entered would be in a position to throw stones at a
fellow-culprit, Theodore Bugg turned over the pages.
The book began mildly enough with the winged Victory and only entered
the rapids with La Gioconda. Thence, Niagara-like, one plunge to the
abyss--the Venus de Milo.
The blood flamed to his face; his breath came hot and quick.
With fumbling fingers that trembled with excitement he withdrew the
photograph from its leaf and half showed it to the proprietor with a
whispered “Combyang?”
“Trente sous,” said the shopman in his most rapid French. And in
English, “We take English money here, sir; ten shillings if you please.
May I wrap it up for you?”
But Bugg had thrust it into his inner pocket, and, pressing a sovereign
into the man’s hand, dashed without looking behind him from the shop,
eager to put time and space between himself and his compromising
position.
He hurried to his hotel, not without many a suspicious glance over his
shoulder, and packed his bag. He had ten minutes to spare. He locked
the door carefully, sat down with his back to the light, and pulling
the photograph from his pocket, indulged in a long voluptuous gloat.
Then the boots knocked with the news of his cab, and Bugg, nobler than
Lord Howard of Effingham, thrust his treasure into his pocket, unlocked
the door and cried “Venny!”