fellow revolutionists; with Carpentier and Cæsar; with Victor Hugo and
Lloyd George; with Foch and with Bigarre, the Apache murderer whose
unfortunate penchant for making ladies into curry led him to the
guillotine; with Louis XVI and with Madame Lablanche, who poisoned
eleven husbands and was working to make it an even dozen when the police
deterred her; with Marie Antoinette and with sundry early Christian
martyrs who lived in sweet resignation in electric-lighted catacombs
under the sidewalk of the Boulevard des Capucines in the very heart of
Paris. They were all his friends and he had a word and a joke for each
of them, as on his nightly rounds he washed their faces and dusted out
their ears, for Papa Chibou was night watchman at the Musée
Pratoucy--“The World in Wax. Admission, one franc. Children and
soldiers, half price. Nervous ladies enter the Chamber of Horrors at
their own risk. One is prayed not to touch the wax figures or to permit
dogs to circulate in the establishment.”
He had been at the Musée Pratoucy so long that he looked like a wax
figure himself. Visitors not infrequently mistook him for one and poked
him with inquisitive fingers or canes. He did not undeceive them; he did
not budge; Spartanlike he stood stiff under the pokes; he was rather
proud of being taken for a citizen of the world of wax, which was,
indeed, a much more real world to him than the world of flesh and blood.
He had cheeks like the small red wax pippins used in table decorations,
round eyes, slightly poppy, and smooth white hair, like a wig. He was a
diminutive man and, with his horseshoe moustache of surprising
luxuriance, looked like a gnome going to a fancy-dress ball as a small
walrus. Children who saw him flitting about the dim passages that led to
the catacombs were sure he was a brownie.
His title “Papa” was a purely honorary one, given him because he had
worked some twenty-five years at the museum. He was unwed, and slept at
the museum in a niche of a room just off the Roman arena where
papier-mâché lions and tigers breakfasted on assorted martyrs. At night,
as he dusted off the lions and tigers, he rebuked them sternly for their
lack of delicacy.
“Ah,” he would say, cuffing the ear of the largest lion, which was
earnestly trying to devour a grandfather and an infant simultaneously,
“sort of a pig that you are! I am ashamed of you, eater of babies. You
will go to hell for this, Monsieur Lion, you may depend upon it.
Monsieur Satan will poach you like an egg, I promise you. Ah, you bad
one, you species of a camel, you Apache, you profiteer----”
Then Papa Chibou would bend over and very tenderly address the elderly
martyr who was lying beneath the lion’s paws and exhibiting signs of
distress and, say, “Patience, my brave one. It does not take long to be
eaten, and then, consider: The good Lord will take you up to heaven, and
there, if you wish, you yourself can eat a lion every day. You are a man
of holiness, Phillibert. You will be Saint Phillibert, beyond doubt, and
then won’t you laugh at lions!”
Phillibert was the name Papa Chibou had given to the venerable martyr;
he had bestowed names on all of them. Having consoled Phillibert, he
would softly dust the fat wax infant whom the lion was in the act of
bolting.
“Courage, my poor little Jacob,” Papa Chibou would say. “It is not every
baby that can be eaten by a lion; and in such a good cause too. Don’t
cry, little Jacob. And remember: When you get inside Monsieur Lion, kick
and kick and kick! That will give him a great sickness of the stomach.
Won’t that be fun, little Jacob?”
So he went about his work, chatting with them all, for he was fond of
them all, even of Bigarre the Apache and the other grisly inmates of the
Chamber of Horrors. He did chide the criminals for their regrettable
proclivities in the past and warn them that he would tolerate no such
conduct in his museum. It was not his museum of course. Its owner was
Monsieur Pratoucy, a long-necked, melancholy marabou of a man who sat at
the ticket window and took in the francs. But, though the legal title to
the place might be vested in Monsieur Pratoucy, at night Papa Chibou was
the undisputed monarch of his little wax kingdom. When the last patron
had left and the doors were closed Papa Chibou began to pay calls on his
subjects; across the silent halls he called greetings to them:
“Ah, Bigarre, you old rascal, how goes the world? And you, Madame Marie
Antoinette; did you enjoy a good day? Good evening, Monsieur Cæsar;
aren’t you chilly in that costume of yours? Ah, Monsieur Charlemagne, I
trust your health continues to be of the best.”
His closest friend of them all was Napoleon. The others he liked; to
Napoleon he was devoted. It was a friendship cemented by the years, for
Napoleon had been in the museum as long as Papa Chibou. Other figures
might come and go at the behest of a fickle public, but Napoleon held
his place, albeit he had been relegated to a dim corner.
He was not much of a Napoleon. He was smaller even than the original
Napoleon, and one of his ears had come in contact with a steam radiator
and as a result it was gnarled into a lump the size of a hickory nut; it
was a perfect example of that phenomenon of the prize ring, the
cauliflower ear. He was supposed to be at St. Helena and he stood on a
papier-mâché rock, gazing out wistfully over a nonexistent sea. One hand
was thrust into the bosom of his long-tailed coat, the other hung at his
side. Skintight breeches, once white but white no longer, fitted snugly
over his plump bump of waxen abdomen. A Napoleonic hat, frayed by years
of conscientious brushing by Papa Chibou, was perched above a pensive
waxen brow.
Papa Chibou had been attracted to Napoleon from the first. There was
something so forlorn about him. Papa Chibou had been forlorn, too, in
his first days at the museum. He had come from Bouloire, in the south of
France, to seek his fortune as a grower of asparagus in Paris. He was a
simple man of scant schooling and he had fancied that there were
asparagus beds along the Paris boulevards. There were none. So necessity
and chance brought him to the Museum Pratoucy to earn his bread and
wine, and romance and his friendship for Napoleon kept him there.
The first day Papa Chibou worked at the museum Monsieur Pratoucy took
him round to tell him about the figures.
“This,” said the proprietor, “is Toulon, the strangler. This is
Mademoiselle Merle, who shot the Russian duke. This is Charlotte Corday,
who stabbed Marat in the bathtub; that gory gentleman is Marat.” Then
they had come to Napoleon. Monsieur Pratoucy was passing him by.
“And who is this sad-looking gentleman?” asked Papa Chibou.
“Name of a name! Do you not know?”
“But no, monsieur.”
“But that is Napoleon himself.”
That night, his first in the museum, Papa Chibou went round and said to
Napoleon, “Monsieur, I do not know with what crimes you are charged, but
I, for one, refuse to think you are guilty of them.”
So began their friendship. Thereafter he dusted Napoleon with especial
care and made him his confidant. One night in his twenty-fifth year at
the museum Papa Chibou said to Napoleon, “You observed those two lovers
who were in here to-night, did you not, my good Napoleon? They thought
it was too dark in this corner for us to see, didn’t they? But we saw
him take her hand and whisper to her. Did she blush? You were near
enough to see. She is pretty, isn’t she, with her bright dark eyes? She
is not a French girl; she is an American; one can tell that by the way
she doesn’t roll her _r_’s. The young man, he is French; and a fine
young fellow he is, or I’m no judge. He is so slender and erect, and he
has courage, for he wears the war cross; you noticed that, didn’t you?
He is very much in love, that is sure. This is not the first time I have
seen them. They have met here before, and they are wise, for is this not
a spot most romantic for the meetings of lovers?”
Papa Chibou flicked a speck of dust from Napoleon’s good ear.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, “it must be a thing most delicious to be young and
in love! Were you ever in love, Napoleon? No? Ah, what a pity! I know,
for I, too, have had no luck in love. Ladies prefer the big, strong men,
don’t they? Well, we must help these two young people, Napoleon. We must
see that they have the joy we missed. So do not let them know you are
watching them if they come here to-morrow night. I will pretend I do not
see.”
Each night after the museum had closed, Papa Chibou gossiped with
Napoleon about the progress of the love affair between the American girl
with the bright dark eyes and the slender, erect young Frenchman.
“All is not going well,” Papa Chibou reported one night, shaking his
head. “There are obstacles to their happiness. He has little money, for
he is just beginning his career. I heard him tell her so to-night. And
she has an aunt who has other plans for her. What a pity if fate should
part them! But you know how unfair fate can be, don’t you, Napoleon? If
only we had some money we might be able to help him, but I, myself, have
no money, and I suppose you, too, were poor, since you look so sad. But
attend; to-morrow is a day most important for them. He has asked her if
she will marry him, and she has said that she will tell him to-morrow
night at nine in this very place. I heard them arrange it all. If she
does not come it will mean no. I think we shall see two very happy ones
here to-morrow night, eh, Napoleon?”
The next night, when the last patron had gone and Papa Chibou had locked
the outer door, he came to Napoleon, and tears were in his eyes.
“You saw, my friend?” broke out Papa Chibou. “You observed? You saw his
face and how pale it grew? You saw his eyes and how they held a thousand
agonies? He waited until I had to tell him three times that the museum
was closing. I felt like an executioner, I assure you; and he looked up
at me as only a man condemned can look. He went out with heavy feet; he
was no longer erect. For she did not come, Napoleon; that girl with the
bright dark eyes did not come. Our little comedy of love has become a
tragedy, monsieur. She has refused him, that poor, that unhappy young
man.”
On the following night at closing time Papa Chibou came hurrying to
Napoleon; he was a-quiver with excitement.
“She was here!” he cried. “Did you see her? She was here and she kept
watching and watching; but, of course, he did not come. I could tell
from his stricken face last night that he had no hope. At last I dared
to speak to her. I said to her, ‘Mademoiselle, a thousand pardons for
the very great liberty I am taking, but it is my duty to tell you--he
was here last night and he waited till closing time. He was all of a
paleness, mademoiselle, and he chewed his fingers in his despair. He
loves you, mademoiselle; a cow could see that. He is devoted to you; and
he is a fine young fellow, you can take an old man’s word for it. Do not
break his heart, mademoiselle.’ She grasped my sleeve. ‘You know him,
then?’ she asked. ‘You know where I can find him?’ ‘Alas, no,’ I said.
‘I have only seen him here with you.’ ‘Poor boy!’ she kept saying. ‘Poor
boy! Oh, what shall I do? I am in dire trouble. I love him, monsieur.’
‘But you did not come,’ I said. ‘I could not,’ she replied, and she was
weeping. ‘I live with an aunt; a rich tiger she is, monsieur, and she
wants me to marry a count, a fat leering fellow who smells of attar of
roses and garlic. My aunt locked me in my room. And now I have lost the
one I love, for he will think I have refused him, and he is so proud he
will never ask me again.’ ‘But surely you could let him know?’ I
suggested. ‘But I do not know where he lives,’ she said. ‘And in a few
days my aunt is taking me off to Rome, where the count is, and oh, dear,
oh, dear, oh, dear----’ And she wept on my shoulder, Napoleon, that
poor little American girl with the bright dark eyes.”
Papa Chibou began to brush the Napoleonic hat.
“I tried to comfort her,” he said. “I told her that the young man would
surely find her, that he would come back and haunt the spot where they
had been happy, but I was telling her what I did not believe. ‘He may
come to-night,’ I said, ‘or to-morrow.’ She waited until it was time to
close the museum. You saw her face as she left; did it not touch you in
the heart?”
Papa Chibou was downcast when he approached Napoleon the next night.
“She waited again till closing time,” he said, “but he did not come. It
made me suffer to see her as the hours went by and her hope ebbed away.
At last she had to leave, and at the door she said to me, ‘If you see
him here again, please give him this.’ She handed me this card,
Napoleon. See, it says, ‘I am at the Villa Rosina, Rome. I love you.
Nina.’ Ah, the poor, poor young man. We must keep a sharp watch for him,
you and I.”
Papa Chibou and Napoleon did watch at the Musée Pratoucy night after
night. One, two, three, four, five nights they watched for him. A week,
a month, more months passed, and he did not come. There came instead one
day news of so terrible a nature that it left Papa Chibou ill and
trembling. The Musée Pratoucy was going to have to close its doors.
“It is no use,” said Monsieur Pratoucy, when he dealt this blow to Papa
Chibou. “I cannot go on. Already I owe much, and my creditors are
clamouring. People will no longer pay a franc to see a few old dummies
when they can see an army of red Indians, Arabs, brigands and dukes in
the moving pictures. Monday the Musée Pratoucy closes its doors for
ever.”
“But, Monsieur Pratoucy,” exclaimed Papa Chibou, aghast, “what about the
people here? What will become of Marie Antoinette, and the martyrs, and
Napoleon?”
“Oh,” said the proprietor, “I’ll be able to realize a little on them,
perhaps. On Tuesday they will be sold at auction. Someone may buy them
to melt up.”
“To melt up, monsieur?” Papa Chibou faltered.
“But certainly. What else are they good for?”
“But surely monsieur will want to keep them; a few of them anyhow?”
“Keep them? Aunt of the devil, but that is a droll idea! Why should any
one want to keep shabby old wax dummies?”
“I thought,” murmured Papa Chibou, “that you might keep just
one--Napoleon, for example--as a remembrance----”
“Uncle of Satan, but you have odd notions! To keep a souvenir of one’s
bankruptcy!”
Papa Chibou went away to his little hole in the wall. He sat on his cot
and fingered his moustache for an hour; the news had left him dizzy, had
made a cold vacuum under his belt buckle. From under his cot, at last,
he took a wooden box, unlocked three separate locks, and extracted a
sock. From the sock he took his fortune, his hoard of big copper
ten-centime pieces, tips he had saved for years. He counted them over
five times most carefully; but no matter how he counted them he could
not make the total come to more than two hundred and twenty-one francs.
That night he did not tell Napoleon the news. He did not tell any of
them. Indeed he acted even more cheerful than usual as he went from one
figure to another. He complimented Madame Lablanche, the lady of the
poisoned spouses, on how well she was looking. He even had a kindly word
to say to the lion that was eating the two martyrs.
“After all, Monsieur Lion,” he said, “I suppose it is as proper for you
to eat martyrs as it is for me to eat bananas. Probably bananas do not
enjoy being eaten any more than martyrs do. In the past I have said
harsh things to you, Monsieur Lion; I am sorry I said them, now. After
all, it is hardly your fault that you eat people. You were born with an
appetite for martyrs, just as I was born poor.” And he gently tweaked
the lion’s papier-mâché ear.
When he came to Napoleon, Papa Chibou brushed him with unusual care and
thoroughness. With a moistened cloth he polished the imperial nose, and
he took pains to be gentle with the cauliflower ear. He told Napoleon
the latest joke he had heard at the cabmen’s café where he ate his
breakfast of onion soup, and, as the joke was mildly improper, nudged
Napoleon in the ribs, and winked at him.
“We are men of the world, eh, old friend?” said Papa Chibou. “We are
philosophers, is that not so?” Then he added, “We take what life sends
us, and sometimes it sends hardnesses.”
He wanted to talk more with Napoleon, but somehow he couldn’t; abruptly,
in the midst of a joke, Papa Chibou broke off and hurried down into the
depths of the Chamber of Horrors and stood there for a very long time
staring at an unfortunate native of Siam being trodden on by an
elephant.
It was not until the morning of the auction sale that Papa Chibou told
Napoleon. Then, while the crowd was gathering, he slipped up to Napoleon
in his corner and laid his hand on Napoleon’s arm.
“One of the hardnesses of life has come to us, old friend,” he said.
“They are going to try to take you away. But, courage! Papa Chibou does
not desert his friends. Listen!” And Papa Chibou patted his pocket,
which gave forth a jingling sound.
The bidding began. Close to the auctioneer’s desk stood a man, a
wizened, rodent-eyed man with a diamond ring and dirty fingers. Papa
Chibou’s heart went down like an express elevator when he saw him, for
he knew that the rodent-eyed man was Mogen, the junk king of Paris. The
auctioneer in a voice slightly encumbered by adenoids, began to sell the
various items in a hurried, perfunctory manner.
“Item 3 is Julius Cæsar, toga and sandals thrown in. How much am I
offered? One hundred and fifty francs? Dirt cheap for a Roman emperor,
that is. Who’ll make it two hundred? Thank you, Monsieur Mogen. The
noblest Roman of them all is going at two hundred francs. Are you all
through at two hundred? Going, going, gone! Julius Cæsar is sold to
Monsieur Mogen.”
Papa Chibou patted Cæsar’s back sympathetically.
“You are worth more, my good Julius,” he said in a whisper. “Good-bye.”
He was encouraged. If a comparatively new Cæsar brought only two
hundred, surely an old Napoleon would bring no more.
The sale progressed rapidly. Monsieur Mogen bought the entire Chamber of
Horrors. He bought Marie Antoinette, and the martyrs and lions. Papa
Chibou, standing near Napoleon, withstood the strain of waiting by
chewing his moustache.
The sale was very nearly over and Monsieur Mogen had bought every item,
when, with a yawn, the auctioneer droned: “Now, ladies and gentlemen,
we come to Item 573, a collection of odds and ends, mostly damaged
goods, to be sold in one lot. The lot includes one stuffed owl that
seems to have moulted a bit; one Spanish shawl, torn; the head of an
Apache who has been guillotined, body missing; a small wax camel, no
humps; and an old wax figure of Napoleon, with one ear damaged. What am
I offered for the lot?”
Papa Chibou’s heart stood still. He laid a reassuring hand on Napoleon’s
shoulder.
“The fool,” he whispered in Napoleon’s good ear, “to put you in the same
class as a camel, no humps, and an owl. But never mind. It is lucky for
us, perhaps.”
“How much for this assortment?” asked the auctioneer.
“One hundred francs,” said Mogen, the junk king.
“One hundred and fifty,” said Papa Chibou, trying to be calm. He had
never spent so vast a sum all at once in his life.
Mogen fingered the material in Napoleon’s coat.
“Two hundred,” said the junk king.
“Are you all through at two hundred?” queried the auctioneer.
“Two hundred and twenty-one,” called Papa Chibou. His voice was a husky
squeak.
Mogen from his rodent eyes glared at Papa Chibou with annoyance and
contempt. He raised his dirtiest finger--the one with the diamond ring
on it--toward the auctioneer.
“Monsieur Mogen bids two hundred and twenty-five,” droned the
auctioneer. “Do I hear two hundred and fifty?”
Papa Chibou hated the world. The auctioneer cast a look in his
direction.
“Two hundred and twenty-five is bid,” he repeated. “Are you all through
at two hundred and twenty-five? Going, going--sold to Monsieur Mogen for
two hundred and twenty-five francs.”
Stunned, Papa Chibou heard Mogen say casually, “I’ll send round my carts
for this stuff in the morning.”
This stuff!
Dully and with an aching breast Papa Chibou went to his room down by the
Roman arena. He packed his few clothes into a box. Last of all he slowly
took from his cap the brass badge he had worn for so many years; it bore
the words “Chief Watchman.” He had been proud of that title, even if it
was slightly inaccurate; he had been not only the chief but the only
watchman. Now he was nothing. It was hours before he summoned up the
energy to take his box round to the room he had rented high up under the
roof of a tenement in a near-by alley. He knew he should start to look
for another job at once, but he could not force himself to do so that
day. Instead, he stole back to the deserted museum and sat down on a
bench by the side of Napoleon. Silently he sat there all night; but he
did not sleep; he was thinking, and the thought that kept pecking at his
brain was to him a shocking one. At last, as day began to edge its pale
way through the dusty windows of the museum, Papa Chibou stood up with
the air of a man who has been through a mental struggle and has made up
his mind.
“Napoleon,” he said, “we have been friends for a quarter of a century
and now we are to be separated because a stranger had four francs more
than I had. That may be lawful, my old friend, but it is not justice.
You and I, we are not going to be parted.”
Paris was not yet awake when Papa Chibou stole with infinite caution
into the narrow street beside the museum. Along this street toward the
tenement where he had taken a room crept Papa Chibou. Sometimes he had
to pause for breath, for in his arms he was carrying Napoleon.
Two policemen came to arrest Papa Chibou that very afternoon. Mogen had
missed Napoleon, and he was a shrewd man. There was not the slightest
doubt of Papa Chibou’s guilt. There stood Napoleon in the corner of his
room, gazing pensively out over the housetops. The police bundled the
overwhelmed and confused Papa Chibou into the police patrol, and with
him, as damning evidence, Napoleon.
In his cell in the city prison Papa Chibou sat with his spirit caved in.
To him jails and judges and justice were terrible and mysterious
affairs. He wondered if he would be guillotined; perhaps not, since his
long life had been one of blameless conduct; but the least he could
expect, he reasoned, was a long sentence to hard labour on Devil’s
Island, and guillotining had certain advantages over that. Perhaps it
would be better to be guillotined, he told himself, now that Napoleon
was sure to be melted up.
The keeper who brought him his meal of stew was a pessimist of jocular
tendencies.
“A pretty pickle,” said the keeper; “and at your age too. You must be a
very wicked old man to go about stealing dummies. What will be safe now?
One may expect to find the Eiffel Tower missing any morning. Dummy
stealing! What a career! We have had a man in here who stole a trolley
car, and one who made off with the anchor of a steamship, and even one
who pilfered a hippopotamus from a zoo, but never one who stole a
dummy--and an old one-eared dummy, at that! It is an affair
extraordinary!”
“And what did they do to the gentleman who stole the hippopotamus?”
inquired Papa Chibou tremulously.
The keeper scratched his head to indicate thought.
“I think,” he said, “that they boiled him alive. Either that or they
transported him for life to Morocco; I don’t recall exactly.”
Papa Chibou’s brow grew damp.
“It was a trial most comical, I can assure you,” went on the keeper.
“The judges were Messieurs Bertouf, Goblin, and Perouse--very amusing
fellows, all three of them. They had fun with the prisoner; how I
laughed. Judge Bertouf said, in sentencing him, ‘We must be severe with
you, pilferer of hippopotamuses. We must make of you an example. This
business of hippopotamus pilfering is getting all too common in Paris.’
They are witty fellows, those judges.”
Papa Chibou grew a shade paler.
“The Terrible Trio?” he asked.
“The Terrible Trio,” replied the keeper cheerfully.
“Will they be my judges?” asked Papa Chibou.
“Most assuredly,” promised the keeper, and strolled away humming happily
and rattling his big keys.
Papa Chibou knew then that there was no hope for him. Even into the
Musée Pratoucy the reputation of those three judges had penetrated, and
it was a sinister reputation indeed. They were three ancient, grim men
who had fairly earned their title, The Terrible Trio, by the severity of
their sentences; evildoers blanched at their names, and this was a
matter of pride to them.
Shortly the keeper came back; he was grinning.
“You have the devil’s own luck, old-timer,” he said to Papa Chibou.
“First you have to be tried by The Terrible Trio, and then you get
assigned to you as lawyer none other than Monsieur Georges Dufayel.”
“And this Monsieur Dufayel, is he then not a good lawyer?” questioned
Papa Chibou miserably.
The keeper snickered.