amusing thing imaginable. “It is really better than a circus to hear him
muddling up his clients’ affairs in court. His mind is not on the case
at all. Heaven knows where it is. When he rises to plead before the
judges he has no fire, no passion. He mumbles and stutters. It is a
saying about the courts that one is as good as convicted who has the ill
luck to draw Monsieur Georges Dufayel as his advocate. Still, if one is
too poor to pay for a lawyer, one must take what he can get. That’s
philosophy, eh, old-timer?”
Papa Chibou groaned.
“Oh, wait till to-morrow,” said the keeper gayly. “Then you’ll have a
real reason to groan.”
“But surely I can see this Monsieur Dufayel.”
“Oh, what’s the use? You stole the dummy, didn’t you? It will be there
in court to appear against you. How entertaining! Witness for the
prosecution: Monsieur Napoleon. You are plainly as guilty as Cain,
old-timer, and the judges will boil your cabbage for you very quickly
and neatly, I can promise you that. Well, see you to-morrow. Sleep
well.”
Papa Chibou did not sleep well. He did not sleep at all, in fact, and
when they marched him into the inclosure where sat the other nondescript
offenders against the law he was shaken and utterly wretched. He was
overawed by the great court room and the thick atmosphere of seriousness
that hung over it.
He did pluck up enough courage to ask a guard, “Where is my lawyer,
Monsieur Dufayel?”
“Oh, he’s late, as usual,” replied the guard. And then, for he was a
waggish fellow, he added, “If you’re lucky he won’t come at all.”
Papa Chibou sank down on the prisoners’ bench and raised his eyes to the
tribunal opposite. His very marrow was chilled by the sight of The
Terrible Trio. The chief judge, Bertouf, was a vast puff of a man, who
swelled out of his judicial chair like a poisonous fungus. His black
robe was familiar with spilled brandy, and his dirty judicial bib was
askew. His face was bibulous and brutal, and he had the wattles of a
turkey gobbler. Judge Goblin, on his right, looked to have mummified; he
was at least a hundred years old and had wrinkled parchment skin and
red-rimmed eyes that glittered like the eyes of a cobra. Judge Perouse
was one vast jungle of tangled grizzled whisker, from the midst of which
projected a cockatoo’s beak of a nose; he looked at Papa Chibou and
licked his lips with a long pink tongue. Papa Chibou all but fainted; he
felt no bigger than a pea, and less important; as for his judges, they
seemed enormous monsters.
The first case was called, a young swaggering fellow who had stolen an
orange from a pushcart.
“Ah, Monsieur Thief,” rumbled Judge Bertouf with a scowl, “you are
jaunty now. Will you be so jaunty a year from to-day when you are
released from prison? I rather think not. Next case.”
Papa Chibou’s heart pumped with difficulty. A year for an orange--and he
had stolen a man! His eyes roved round the room and he saw two guards
carrying in something which they stood before the judges. It was
Napoleon.
A guard tapped Papa Chibou on the shoulder. “You’re next,” he said.
“But my lawyer, Monsieur Dufayel----” began Papa Chibou.
“You’re in hard luck,” said the guard, “for here he comes.”
Papa Chibou in a daze found himself in the prisoner’s dock. He saw
coming toward him a pale young man. Papa Chibou recognized him at once.
It was the slender, erect young man of the museum. He was not very erect
now; he was listless. He did not recognize Papa Chibou; he barely
glanced at him.
“You stole something,” said the young lawyer, and his voice was
toneless. “The stolen goods were found in your room. I think we might
better plead guilty and get it over with.”
“Yes, monsieur,” said Papa Chibou, for he had let go all his hold on
hope. “But attend a moment. I have something--a message for you.”
Papa Chibou fumbled through his pockets and at last found the card of
the American girl with the bright dark eyes. He handed it to Georges
Dufayel.
“She left it with me to give to you,” said Papa Chibou. “I was chief
watchman at the Musée Pratoucy, you know. She came there night after
night, to wait for you.”
The young man gripped the sides of the card with both hands; his face,
his eyes, everything about him seemed suddenly charged with new life.
“Ten thousand million devils!” he cried. “And I doubted her! I owe you
much, monsieur. I owe you everything.” He wrung Papa Chibou’s hand.
Judge Bertouf gave an impatient judicial grunt.
“We are ready to hear your case, Advocate Dufayel,” said the judge, “if
you have one.”
The court attendants sniggered.
“A little moment, monsieur the judge,” said the lawyer. He turned to
Papa Chibou. “Quick,” he shot out, “tell me about the crime you are
charged with. What did you steal?”
“Him,” replied Papa Chibou, pointing.
“That dummy of Napoleon?”
Papa Chibou nodded.
“But why?”
Papa Chibou shrugged his shoulders.
“Monsieur could not understand.”
“But you must tell me!” said the lawyer urgently. “I must make a plea
for you. These savages will be severe enough, in any event; but I may be
able to do something. Quick; why did you steal this Napoleon?”
“I was his friend,” said Papa Chibou. “The museum failed. They were
going to sell Napoleon for junk, Monsieur Dufayel. He was my friend. I
could not desert him.”
The eyes of the young advocate had caught fire; they were lit with a
flash. He brought his fist down on the table.
“Enough!” he cried.
Then he rose in his place and addressed the court. His voice was low,
vibrant and passionate; the judges, in spite of themselves, leaned
forward to listen to him.
“May it please the honourable judges of this court of France,” he began,
“my client is guilty. Yes, I repeat in a voice of thunder, for all
France to hear, for the enemies of France to hear, for the whole wide
world to hear, he is guilty. He did steal this figure of Napoleon, the
lawful property of another. I do not deny it. This old man, Jerome
Chibou, is guilty, and I for one am proud of his guilt.”
Judge Bertouf grunted.
“If your client is guilty, Advocate Dufayel,” he said, “that settles it.
Despite your pride in his guilt, which is a peculiar notion, I confess,
I am going to sentence him to----”
“But wait, your honour!” Dufayel’s voice was compelling. “You must, you
shall hear me! Before you pass sentence on this old man, let me ask you
a question.”
“Well?”
“Are you a Frenchman, Judge Bertouf?”
“But certainly.”
“And you love France?”
“Monsieur has not the effrontery to suggest otherwise?”
“No. I was sure of it. That is why you will listen to me.”
“I listen.”
“I repeat then: Jerome Chibou is guilty. In the law’s eyes he is a
criminal. But in the eyes of France and those who love her his guilt is
a glorious guilt; his guilt is more honourable than innocence itself.”
The three judges looked at one another blankly; Papa Chibou regarded his
lawyer with wide eyes; Georges Dufayel spoke on.
“These are times of turmoil and change in our country, messieurs the
judges. Proud traditions which were once the birthright of every
Frenchman have been allowed to decay. Enemies beset us within and
without. Youth grows careless of that honour which is the soul of a
nation. Youth forgets the priceless heritages of the ages, the great
names that once brought glory to France in the past, when Frenchmen were
Frenchmen. There are some in France who may have forgotten the respect
due a nation’s great”--here Advocate Dufayel looked very hard at the
judges--“but there are a few patriots left who have not forgotten. And
there sits one of them.
“This poor old man has deep within him a glowing devotion to France. You
may say that he is a simple, unlettered peasant. You may say that he is
a thief. But I say, and true Frenchmen will say with me, that he is a
patriot, messieurs the judges. He loves Napoleon. He loves him for what
he did for France. He loves him because in Napoleon burned that spirit
which has made France great. There was a time, messieurs the judges,
when your fathers and mine dared share that love for a great leader.
Need I remind you of the career of Napoleon? I know I need not. Need I
tell you of his victories? I know I need not.”
Nevertheless, Advocate Dufayel did tell them of the career of Napoleon.
With a wealth of detail and many gestures he traced the rise of
Napoleon; he lingered over his battles; for an hour and ten minutes he
spoke eloquently of Napoleon and his part in the history of France.
“You may have forgotten,” he concluded, “and others may have forgotten,
but this old man sitting here a prisoner--he did not forget. When
mercenary scoundrels wanted to throw on the junk heap this effigy of one
of France’s greatest sons, who was it that saved him? Was it you,
messieurs the judges? Was it I? Alas, no. It was a poor old man who
loved Napoleon more than he loved himself. Consider, messieurs the
judges; they were going to throw on the junk heap Napoleon--France’s
Napoleon--our Napoleon. Who would save him? Then up rose this man, this
Jerome Chibou, whom you would brand as a thief, and he cried aloud for
France and for the whole world to hear, ‘Stop! Desecraters of Napoleon,
stop! There still lives one Frenchman who loves the memories of his
native land; there is still one patriot left. I, I, Jerome Chibou, will
save Napoleon!’ And he did save him, messieurs the judges.”
Advocate Dufayel mopped his brow, and levelling an accusing finger at
The Terrible Trio he said, “You may send Jerome Chibou to jail. But when
you do, remember this: You are sending to jail the spirit of France. You
may find Jerome Chibou guilty. But when you do, remember this: You are
condemning a man for love of country, for love of France. Wherever true
hearts beat in French bosoms, messieurs the judges, there will the crime
of Jerome Chibou be understood, and there will the name of Jerome Chibou
be honoured. Put him in prison, messieurs the judges. Load his poor
feeble old body with chains. And a nation will tear down the prison
walls, break his chains, and pay homage to the man who loved Napoleon
and France so much that he was willing to sacrifice himself on the altar
of patriotism.”
Advocate Dufayel sat down; Papa Chibou raised his eyes to the judges’
bench. Judge Perouse was ostentatiously blowing his beak of a nose.
Judge Goblin, who wore a Sedan ribbon in his buttonhole, was sniffling
into his inkwell. And Chief Judge Bertouf was openly blubbering.
“Jerome Chibou, stand up.” It was Chief Judge Bertouf who spoke, and his
voice was thick with emotion.
Papa Chibou, quaking, stood up. A hand like a hand of pink bananas was
thrust down at him.
“Jerome Chibou,” said Chief Judge Bertouf, “I find you guilty. Your
crime is patriotism in the first degree. I sentence you to freedom. Let
me have the honour of shaking the hand of a true Frenchman.”
“And I,” said Judge Goblin, thrusting out a hand as dry as autumn
leaves.
“And I also,” said Judge Perouse, reaching out a hairy hand.
“And, furthermore,” said Chief Judge Bertouf, “you shall continue to
protect the Napoleon you saved. I subscribe a hundred francs to buy him
for you.”
“And I,” said Judge Goblin.
“And I also,” said Judge Perouse.
As they left the court room, Advocate Dufayel, Papa Chibou and Napoleon,
Papa Chibou turned to his lawyer.
“I can never repay monsieur,” he began.
“Nonsense!” said the lawyer.
“And would Monsieur Dufayel mind telling me again the last name of
Napoleon?”
“Why, Bonaparte, of course. Surely you knew----”
“Alas, no, Monsieur Dufayel. I am a man the most ignorant. I did not
know that my friend had done such great things.”
“You didn’t? Then what in the name of heaven did you think Napoleon
was?”
“A sort of murderer,” said Papa Chibou humbly.
* * * * *
Out beyond the walls of Paris in a garden stands the villa of Georges
Dufayel, who has become, everyone says, the most eloquent and
successful young lawyer in the Paris courts. He lives there with his
wife, who has bright dark eyes. To get to his house one must pass a tiny
gatehouse, where lives a small old man with a prodigious walrus
moustache. Visitors who peer into the gatehouse as they pass sometimes
get a shock, for standing in one corner of its only room they see
another small man, in uniform and a big hat. He never moves, but stands
there by the window all day, one hand in the bosom of his coat, the
other at his side, while his eyes look out over the garden. He is
waiting for Papa Chibou to come home after his work among the asparagus
beds to tell him the jokes and the news of the day.
TOWERS OF FAME
BY ELIZABETH IRONS FOLSOM
From _McClure’s_
He raised his voice to bar interruption.
“You cannot tell anything about any one. Romance survives where you
least expect it. Would you look for it in Eric Hall, for instance? Would
you suspect him of Romance?”
“Well, hardly,” said one of the listeners. “Not that calculating, cold
man--all indifference. Just to make your point, don’t try to prove that
_he_ has known sentiment.”
“More than most men,” replied Kent. “I have a notion to tell you about
him. I _will_ tell you. Come closer, Janet--all of you--to hear the
unbelievable.”
“About Judge Eric Hall who knows only power--fame!” They laughed.
“Yes, about him.”
“How do _you_ happen to know?”
“He told me.”
“Did he expect you to tell?”
“Heaven knows what a man expects when he babbles.”
Dinner was over; coffee was being served in the big, candlelit drawing
room. The guests had made little intimate groups; some one at the piano
at the far end of the room touched half strains between talk and
laughter. The group in the deep window drew closer to Kent, and made
themselves comfortable.
“‘Babbles’ is what I said,” went on the speaker, rolling a cigarette
with deliberation, “but that is the wrong word. We were old friends: in
fact, I was responsible for the whole thing, for I had talked about the
queer town in one of the Middle Western states. Eric is the kind who
always wants to know, so when he happened to be in that part of the
state, he hired a car and drove out to see for himself.”
“I’ve heard of that town,” declared Janet eagerly. “There is no other
like it, is there?”
Kent passed over the question.
“I’ll tell it exactly as he told me. I’m sure I can. I could not forget
it. He had driven ten miles through dust and wind with a thunderstorm
rolling up ahead of him--purple storm with green fringe on it--the kind
they have out there. He was whacking along when he caught sight of a
sign by the roadside. He stopped and backed his car to read it. It
said--I remember it exactly--it said:
SMOKING, DRINKING, PROFANITY, FORBIDDEN AS YOU PASS THROUGH THIS
TOWN.
YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO POLLUTE THE AIR.
MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. MOST PEOPLE LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK.”
“Oh! Truly!” gasped Janet.
“It was what Eric was looking for--the entrance to the town of fanatics.
There was a blank-looking group of houses marked at intervals by tall,
white board signs--black letters on a white ground. He drove slowly. It
was Sunday and the stillness was absolute. There was a building that
might be a hotel--on the veranda were vacant chairs tilted against the
rail; a few shops, gray with closed doors; houses gray, too, all with
doors shut tight, curtains made to screen. The main street, three or
four blocks long, was deserted. At a far corner a man appeared, took a
look at the coming car, and stepped out of sight. A woman who came out
on her porch, slipped back, and shut the door sharply. She was gray,
too--clothes and hair; the distant man had seemed gray--a brown-gray,
like the dust that whirled.
“He stopped the car again to read another sign, this one as large as a
house front, full of preachments, repeating the words that he had first
read:
MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. THEY LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK.
NO OUTSIDE PEOPLE OR INSTITUTIONS WANTED HERE.
THE DANCE IS OF THE DEVIL, THE THEATRES ARE DEVIL-BEGOTTEN.
“And again:
MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. THEY LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK.
“As he stood reading, he was conscious that men had appeared in the
streets ahead and behind him. They fitted the houses--brown-gray,
closed, shut tight. They walked slowly, eyes on the ground, but, as they
passed him, he had a look from each. The looks were alike: ominous--hate
snapped out at him from under briefly raised lids. Each face had a set
mouth, with slashes down from its corners. Each head that turned
slightly had--menace--hostile promises.
“The storm was breaking: a flash of lightning swept down the street;
thunder crashed; for a moment the wind ceased--it hung aloof and the
calm was thick with the brown-gray of the town--with deep silence. A
desert plain, a skiff alone on the ocean, would have been more friendly,
he said.”
“Where is the Romance?” some one asked, as Kent stopped.
“It’s at hand. It crossed the street in front of his car just as the
wind came tearing like a railroad train. He saw her face for an instant
before it caught her. Well, folks--I can’t tell you how Eric spoke of
her face. He forgot that he had ever seen a court room or a law office,
or had known indifference or ambition. He said to me--I can see him as
he rapped the table and forgot he was speaking--‘The face of that girl,
Kent!’ And--can you believe it of Eric?--he went on: ‘Do you remember
Raphael’s peasant girl? The one with parted lips and queer, asking eyes?
She was exactly like her. The wind took her sunbonnet away. She had two
long braids of hair. She stopped and stared at me, her long, brown-gray
skirt twisting about her little flat shoes. Then she ran on, clutching
her braids, and a near door slammed after her.’
“The wind was on then; the few trees bent before it.
“The rain was close. There was no protection and, acting on impulse, he
drove the car back of the huge sign. It was a shield from the wind and a
slight protection against the slanting rain.
“Eric said it had been years since he had seen a Western storm, where it
lets loose and whoops ’er up. He was half blinded with the lightning; he
could hear the smash of small buildings; the rattling scurry of débris
blown by the wind. His own shelter shivered, creaked. It was braced
strongly from the back, but he thought it more than likely that it would
go. Across the street he heard one go down with a splitting thud.
“But as he waited, he was conscious, he said, only of the girl who was
somewhere in that strange town. I’d like to have had you--you people who
think you know Eric--watch him as he told me this. There was not a drop
of blood in his body, to judge from the colour of his face; his fingers
twitched. He talked because he had to talk to some one, I guess. He was
not self-sufficient just then.”
“Hm-m,” said some one. “I don’t get him in that rôle, and still I do,
too, in a way: the force in him could be applied as well to
an--er--infatuation as to anything else. I suppose it _was_ an
infatuation, eh, Kent? They are strange things, but they wear off.”
“Go on,” said Janet.
“He said that he sat there in the car while the wind bent his board
protection and the rain came in sheets. He was wet through from the
spray where it struck the outer edge of the car. He sat and watched
pictures of that girl’s face: they came through the rain; came into the
lightning; came everywhere. He was half conscious, he said, absorbed in
the new thing.
“Out of that state of mind--he told a lot about that; it seemed to
puzzle him as it does us now--he was startled by a new gale of wind, a
close splitting of boards, the shriek of wood parting from wood at his
elbow; and then the whole great shield tottered, swayed, resisted,
swayed again, and came down over him. He ducked his head. A moment later
he discovered that, in falling, the sign had gone into some trees
standing close and was held there, in half-tent fashion, so that it
protected him from the rain. Then he saw, too, some one clinging to the
slanting edge of the shield. He leaped from the car and caught her as
she fell.
“Her clothes were dripping with water; there was a trickle of blood down
one cheek. But she was not unconscious and she struggled in his arms. He
made her sit down on the running board of the car. Then he asked if she
was hurt and she shook her head. He asked her how she happened to be
there back of the sign and she shook her head again. He sat down beside
her and watched her. He spoke to me about ‘filling his eyes with her for
the rest of his life’--and other things that Eric would not have said
normally--or if he had not been--er--infatuated. That was the word,
wasn’t it?
“They sat there a long time without speaking, and she kept her eyes
closed. The wind died away, but the rain persisted--a steady downpour;
the green-gray of the storm daylight changed into the black-gray of
steady rain. He waited.
“When she opened her eyes, he asked again how she happened to be there.
After much urging she answered him.
“‘They turned me out of the house,’ she said.
“‘Turned you out!’ he repeated, incredulously. ‘In this storm! From your
home! Why? What had you done?’
“‘I had stopped and looked at you,’ she answered simply.
“‘What?’ Eric put force into the word when he spoke it.
“‘I had looked at you. Stopped and looked. It was a sin. After that, I
could not be allowed to live with those who were not sinners,’ she
explained.
“‘I never heard of such a thing!’ he told her. ‘Are they crazy?’
“‘The signs tell you. It is their belief. It was a sin to have looked at
you--and remembered.’
“Eric’s blood was racing; she had remembered! Looked at him, and
remembered.
“‘Don’t worry. Just tell me,’ he urged.
“She told him. He did not tell me just what she said, but I could guess
as I watched the light back in his eyes. Her father had opened the door
and put her out in the rain as a wanton. He was very strict--father. As
soon as the rain was over she would go to the other end of town where
she had a friend who would take her in. No, she did not believe as her
father and the people of the town believed; her mother had taken her
away and she had been brought up differently, but when the mother had
died, he had brought her back.
“‘My mother could not bear it here,’ she said. ‘I am not so brave as
she, or I would go.’”
“Go on,” said Janet again.
“It’s a good story, isn’t it? Especially since we have our own opinions
concerning him. No king of lovers, no Romeo, no schoolboy, could have
told such a tale of first love as Eric told me. Spilled it out. Words
tumbling over each other.
“In one look, in one half hour, it seemed, he had turned over all the
principles upon which we live here in New York. The primal had taken
him--and her, too. She was not afraid; not frightened at what she must
have seen in him.
“‘And why, when he turned you out, did you come in here?’ he asked
finally.
“He had never before listened for an answer as he listened for that one.
“‘I came because you were here,’ she said.
“Well, people--I began to see then what he was up against in the way of
intoxication. He had not touched her; it had been all very aloof, but
when she told him why she had come, he said he would have been wooden if
he had not gathered her close and held her tight.
“Then, through the slackening rainfall, he heard footsteps outside their
shelter, heard them on the soft ground close by, saw a stooped figure
straighten under their tipped roof. It was one of the all-alike,
brown-gray men with jammed-shut mouth and slashes down from it; with
hate-filled eyes.
“This man levelled his finger at Eric. ‘Now ye kin have her,’ he said
harshly. ‘Ye kin take her along o’ ye. There’s no door open in this town
for such as her. They’re shut against her for ever. This is no place
for her ever again. We’re done. All o’ us.’
“She sprang forward. ‘Father!’ she cried.
“He struck her with his open hand straight across the mouth.
“‘Harlot! Plaything o’ strange men!’ he accused, scornfully.
“Eric said that he reached for the man, but that she spread her arms
between them.
“‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘He believes it! He cannot help it. No, no!’
“The man did not speak again. He stooped under the slanting boards and
went away.