"More than that," I continued, "for nearly six weeks I lodged just
behind the church, in a whitewashed cottage with a stock of oranges,
pipes and boot-laces for sale in the window."
"It is my mother's shop!" he exclaimed breathlessly.
I nodded my head, and then proceeded to give him the hundred-and-one
messages that I had received from the little old lady as soon as she
discovered that I knew her son.
"It is so long since I 'ave seen 'er," said Monsieur Joseph, blowing his
nose violently. "So 'ard I work in London these ten, fifteen years that
only once have I gone 'ome since my father died."
Then I told him how bent and old his mother was, and how lonesome she
had seemed all by herself in the cottage, and as I spoke of the shop
which she still kept going in her front-room the tears fairly rained
down his face.
"But, M'sieur," said he, "that which you tell me is indeed strange; for
those letters which she writes to me week by week are always gay, and it
'as seemed to me that my mother was well content."
Then he struck his fist on the table. "I 'ave it," he said. "She shall
come to live 'ere with me in Londres. All that she desires shall be
'ers, for am I not a rich man?"
I shook my head. "She would never leave her village now," I told him.
"And I know well that she desires nothing in the world except to see you
again."
Then as I rose to go, "Good night, M'sieur," said Joseph a little sadly.
"Be very sure that there is always a welcome for you 'ere."
The next time that I dined at the Mazarin was some four weeks later, on
the eve of my return to the Front. A strange waiter showed me to my
place, and Joseph was nowhere to be seen. Indeed a wholly different air
seemed to pervade the place since my last visit. Presently I beckoned to
a waiter whom I recognised as having served under the old _régime_.
"Where is Monsieur Joseph?" I asked him.
"Where indeed, Sir!" the man replied. "It is all so strange. One day it
is arranged that he shall take over the restaurant and its staff, and on
the next he come to say 'Good-bye' to us all, and then leave for France.
Oh, it is _drôle_. So good a business man to lose the chance that comes
once only in a life! He is too old to fight. Yet who knows? Maybe he
heard of something better out there...."
As the man spoke the gold-and-white walls of the restaurant faded, the
clatter of plates and dishes died away, and I was back again in a tiny
village shop in Picardy. Across the counter, packed with its curious
stock, I saw Monsieur Joseph, with shirt-sleeves rolled up, gravely
handing a stick of chocolate to a child, and taking its sou in return.
In the diminutive kitchen behind sat a little white-haired old lady with
such a look of content on her face as I have rarely seen.
Then suddenly I found myself back again in the London restaurant.
"Yes," I said to the waiter, "it is possible, as you say, that Monsieur
Joseph heard of something better in France."
And raising my glass I drank a silent toast.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE TUBER'S REPARTEE.