In one of the dirtiest and most gloomy streets leading to the Rue
St. Denis, in Paris, there stands a tall and ancient house, the lower
portion of which is a large mercer's shop. This establishment is held
to be one of the very best in the neighborhood, and has for many years
belonged to an individual on whom we will bestow the name of Ramin.
About ten years ago, Monsieur Ramin was a jovial red-faced man of
forty, who joked his customers into purchasing his goods, flattered
the pretty _grisettes_ outrageously, and now and then gave them a
Sunday treat at the barrier, as the cheapest way of securing their
custom. Some people thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and
wondered how, with his off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so
fast, but those who knew him well saw that he was one of those who
"never lost an opportunity." Others declared that Monsieur Ramin's
own definition of his character was, that he was a "_bon enfant_,"
and that "it was all luck." He shrugged his shoulders and laughed when
people hinted at his deep scheming in making, and his skill in taking
advantage of Excellent Opportunities.
He was sitting in his gloomy parlor one fine morning in spring,
breakfasting from a dark liquid honored with the name of onion soup,
glancing at the newspaper, and keeping a vigilant look on the shop
through the open door, when his old servant Catharine suddenly
observed:
"I suppose you know Monsieur Bonelle has come to live in the vacant
apartment on the fourth floor?"
"What!" exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a loud key.
Catharine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in
total silence.
"Well!" he said at length, in his most careless tones, "what about
the old fellow?" and he once more resumed his triple occupation of
reading, eating, and watching.
"Why," continued Catharine, "they say he is nearly dying, and that his
housekeeper, Marguerite, vowed he could never get up stairs alive. It
took two men to carry him up; and when he was at length quiet in bed,
Marguerite went down to the porter's lodge, and sobbed there a whole
hour, saying her poor master had the gout, the rheumatics, and a bad
asthma; that though he had been got up stairs, he would never come
down again alive; that if she could only get him to confess his sins
and make his will, she would not mind it so much; but that when
she spoke of the lawyer or the priest, he blasphemed at her like a
heathen, and declared that he would live to bury her and everybody
else."
Monsieur Ramin heard Catharine with great attention, forgot to finish
his soup, and remained for five minutes in profound rumination,
without so much as perceiving two customers who had entered the shop
and were waiting to be served. When aroused, he was heard to exclaim:
"What an excellent opportunity!"
Monsieur Bonelle had been Ramin's predecessor. The succession of the
latter to the shop was a mystery. No one ever knew how it was that
this young and poor assistant managed to replace his patron. Some said
that he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened
to expose unless the business were given up to him as the price of his
silence; others averred, that having drawn a prize in the lottery,
he had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and
that Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had
thought it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered,
and avoid a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls--moved no doubt
by Monsieur Bonelle's misfortune--endeavored to console and pump him;
but all they could get from him was the bitter exclamation, "To think
I should have been duped by _him_!" For Ramin had the art, though
then a mere youth, to pass himself off on his master as an innocent
provincial lad. Those who sought an explanation from the new mercer
were still more unsuccessful. "My good old master," he said in his
jovial way, "felt in need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him
of all business and botheration."
Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard
of his "good old master." The house, of which he tenanted the lower
portion, was offered for sale. He had long coveted it, and had almost
concluded an agreement with the actual owner, when Monsieur Bonelle
unexpectedly stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by offering a trifle
more secured the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur Ramin
were extreme. He could not understand how Bonelle, whom he had thought
ruined, had scraped up so large a sum; his lease was out, and he
now felt himself at the mercy of the man he had so much injured. But
either Monsieur Bonelle was free from vindictive feelings, or those
feelings did not blind him to the expediency of keeping a good tenant:
for though he raised the rent until Monsieur Ramin groaned inwardly,
he did not refuse to renew the lease. They had met at that period, but
never since.
"Well, Catharine," observed Monsieur Ramin to his old servant on the
following morning, "How is that good Monsieur Bonelle getting on?"
"I dare say you feel very uneasy about him," she replied with a sneer.
Monsieur Ramin looked up and frowned.
"Catharine," said he, dryly, "you will have the goodness, in the first
place, not to make impertinent remarks: in the second place, you will
oblige me by going up stairs to inquire after the health of Monsieur
Bonelle, and say that I sent you."
Catharine grumbled, and obeyed. Her master was in the shop, when she
returned in a few minutes, and delivered with evident satisfaction the
following gracious message:
"Monsieur Bonelle desires his compliments to you, and declines to
state how he is; he will also thank you to attend to your own shop,
and not to trouble yourself about his health."
"How does he look?" asked Monsieur Ramin, with perfect composure.
"I caught a glimpse of him, and he appears to me to be rapidly
preparing for the good offices of the undertaker."
Monsieur Ramin smiled, rubbed his hands, and joked merrily with a
dark-eyed _grisette_, who was cheapening some ribbon for her cap. That
girl made an excellent bargain that day.
Toward dusk the mercer left the shop to the care of his attendant, and
softly stole up to the fourth story. In answer to his gentle ring, a
little old woman opened the door, and giving him a rapid look, said
briefly:
"Monsieur is inexorable: he won't see any doctor whatever."
She was going to shut the door in his face, when Ramin quickly
interposed, under his breath, with "I am not a doctor."
She looked at him from head to foot.
"Are you a lawyer?"
"Nothing of the sort, my good lady."
"Well then, are you a priest?"
"I may almost say, quite the reverse."
"Indeed, you must go away, Master sees no one."
Once more she would have shut the door, but Ramin prevented her.
"My good lady," said he in his most insinuating tones, "it is true
I am neither a lawyer, a doctor, nor a priest. I am an old friend,
a very old friend of your excellent master; I have come to see good
Monsieur Bonelle in his present affliction."
Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the
door behind him. He was going to pass from the narrow and gloomy
ante-chamber into an inner room--whence now proceeded a sound of loud
coughing--when the old woman laid her hand on his arm, and raising
herself on tip-toe, to reach his ear, whispered:
"For Heaven's sake, sir, since you are his friend, do talk to him:
do tell him to make his will, and hint something about a soul to be
saved, and all that sort of thing: do, sir!"
Monsieur Ramin nodded and winked in a way that said "I will." He
proved however his prudence by not speaking aloud; for a voice from
within sharply exclaimed,
"Marguerite, you are talking to some one! Marguerite! I will see
neither doctor nor lawyer; and if any meddling priest dare--"
"It is only an old friend, sir;" interrupted Marguerite, opening the
inner door.
Her master, on looking up, perceived the red face of Monsieur Ramin
peeping over the old woman's shoulder, and irefully cried out:
"How dare you bring that fellow here? And you, sir, how dare you
come?"
"My good old friend, there are feelings," said Ramin, spreading his
fingers over the left pocket of his waistcoat--"there are feelings,"
he repeated, "that cannot be subdued. One such feeling brought me
here. The fact is, I am a good-natured easy fellow, and I never
bear malice. I never forget an old friend, but love to forget old
differences when I find one party in affliction."
He drew a chair forward as he spoke, and composedly seated himself
opposite to his late master.
Monsieur Bonelle was a thin old man, with a pale sharp face and keen
features. At first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast
arm-chair; but, as if not, satisfied with this distant view, he bent
forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he looked up into
Ramin's face with a fixed and piercing gaze. He had not, however, the
power of disconcerting his guest.
"What did you come here for?" he at length asked.
"Merely to have the extreme satisfaction of seeing how you are, my
good old friend. Nothing more."
"Well, look at me--and then go."
Nothing could be so discouraging: but this was an Excellent
Opportunity, and when Monsieur Ramin _had_ an excellent opportunity in
view, his pertinacity was invincible. Being now resolved to stay, it
was not in Monsieur Bonelle's power to banish him. At the same time
he had tact enough to render his presence agreeable. He knew that his
coarse and boisterous wit had often delighted Monsieur Bonelle of old,
and he now exerted himself so successfully as to betray the old man
two or three times into hearty laughter. "Ramin," said he at length,
laying his thin hand on the arm of his guest, and peering with his
keen glance into the mercer's purple face, "you are a funny fellow,
but I know you; you cannot make me believe you have called just to
see how I am, and to amuse me. Come, be candid for once; what do you
want?"
Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as
to say, "Can you suspect me?"
"I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me," continued the
old man; "and surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for
money."
"Money!" repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something
he never dreamt of. "Oh, no!"
Ramin saw it would not do to broach the subject he had really come
about, too abruptly, now that suspicion seemed so wide awake--_the_
opportunity had not arrived.
"There is something up, Ramin, I know; I see it in the twinkle of your
eye; but you can't deceive me again."
"Deceive _you_?" said the jolly schemer, shaking his head
reverentially. "Deceive a man of your penetration and depth?
Impossible! The bare supposition is flattery. My dear friend," he
continued, soothingly, "I did not dream of such a thing. The fact is,
Bonelle, though they call me a jovial, careless, rattling dog, I have
a conscience; and, somehow, I have never felt quite easy about the
way in which I became your successor down-stairs. It was rather sharp
practice, I admit."
Bonelle seemed to relent.
"Now for it," said the Opportunity-hunter to himself--"By-the-bye,"
(speaking aloud,) "this house must be a great trouble to you in your
present weak state? Two of your lodgers have lately gone away without
paying--a great nuisance, especially to an invalid."
"I tell you I'm as sound as a colt."
"At all events, the whole concern must be a great bother to you. If I
were you, I would sell the house."
"And if I were _you_," returned the landlord, dryly, "I would buy
it--"
"Precisely," interrupted the tenant, eagerly.
"That is, if you could get it. Pooh! I knew you were after something.
Will you give eighty thousand francs for it?" abruptly asked Monsieur
Bonelle.
"Eighty thousand francs!" echoed Ramin. "Do you take me for Louis
Philippe or the Bank of France!"
"Then we'll say no more about it--are you not afraid of leaving your
shop so long?"
Ramin returned to the charge, heedless of the hint to depart. "The
fact is, my good old friend, ready money is not my strong point just
now. But if you wish very much to be relieved of the concern, what say
you to a life annuity? I could manage that."
Monsieur Bonelle gave a short, dry, church-yard cough, and looked as
if his life were not worth an hour's purchase. "You think yourself
immensely clever, I dare say," he said. "They have persuaded you that
I am dying. Stuff! I shall bury you yet."
The mercer glanced at the thin fragile frame, and exclaimed to
himself, "Deluded old gentleman!" "My dear Bonelle," he continued,
aloud, "I know well the strength of your admirable constitution: but
allow me to observe that you neglect yourself too much. Now, suppose
a good sensible doctor--"
"Will you pay him?" interrogated Bonelle, sharply.
"Most willingly," replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old
man smile. "As to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will
talk of it some other time."
"After you have heard the doctor's report," sneered Bonelle.
The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man's keen look
immediately detected. Neither could repress a smile: these good souls
understood one another perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the
Excellent Opportunity he desired, and departed.
The next day Ramin sent a neighboring medical man, and heard it was
his opinion that if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would
be a miracle. Delightful news!
Several days elapsed, and although very anxious, Ramin assumed a
careless air, and did not call upon his landlord, or take any notice
of him. At the end of the week old Marguerite entered the shop to make
a trifling purchase.
"And how are we getting on up-stairs?" negligently asked Monsieur
Ramin.
"Worse and worse, my good sir," she sighed. "We have rheumatic pains
which often make us use expressions the reverse of Christian-like, and
yet nothing can induce us to see either the lawyer or the priest; the
gout is getting nearer to our stomach every day, and still we go on
talking about the strength of our constitution. Oh, sir, if you have
any influence with us, do, pray do, tell us how wicked it is to die
without making one's will or confessing one's sins."
"I shall go up this very evening," ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.
He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with
pain, and in the worst of tempers.
"What poisoning doctor did you send?" he asked, with an ireful glance;
"I want no doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription;
he forbade me to eat; I _will_ eat."
"He is a very clever man," said the visitor. "He told me that never
in the whole course of his experience has he met with what he called
so much 'resisting power' as exists in your frame. He asked me if you
were not of a long-lived race."
"That is as people may judge," replied Monsieur Bonelle. "All I
can say is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at
eighty-six."
"The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution."
"Who said I hadn't?" exclaimed the invalid feebly.
"You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had
not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the
life annuity?" said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how
near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.
"Why, I have scruples," returned Bonelle, coughing. "I do not wish to
take you in. My longevity would be the ruin of you."
"To meet that difficulty," quickly replied the mercer, "we can reduce
the interest."
"But I must have high interest," placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.
Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called
Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which
made the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they
should talk it over some other day. The mercer left Monsieur Bonelle
in the act of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.
Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement.
"The later one begins to pay, the better," he said, as he descended
the stairs.
Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way. It struck the
observant tradesman that all was not right. Old Marguerite several
times refused to admit him, declaring her master was asleep: there
was something mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to
Monsieur Ramin very ominous. At length a sudden thought occurred to
him: the housekeeper--wishing to become her master's heir--had heard
his scheme and opposed it. On the very day that he arrived at this
conclusion, he met a lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some
transactions, coming down the staircase. The sight sent a chill
through the mercer's commercial heart, and a presentiment--one of
those presentiments that seldom deceive--told him it was too late. He
had, however, the fortitude to abstain from visiting Monsieur Bonelle
until evening came; when he went up, resolved to see him in spite
of all Marguerite might urge. The door was half-open, and the old
housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a middle-aged man in a
dark cassock.
"It is all over! The old witch has got the priests at him," thought
Ramin, inwardly groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be
forestalled.
"You cannot see Monsieur to-night," sharply said Marguerite, as he
attempted to pass.
"Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?" asked Ramin, in a mournful
tone.
"Sir," eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his
coat, "if you are indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to
bring him into a more suitable frame of mind. I have seen many dying
men, but never so much obstinacy, never such infatuated belief in the
duration of life."
"Then you think he really _is_ dying," asked Ramin; and, in spite of
the melancholy accent he endeavored to assume, there was something so
peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he
slowly replied,
"Yes, air, I think he is."
"Ah!" was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now
relaxed his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the
remonstrances of Marguerite, who rushed after the priest. He found
Monsieur Bonelle in bed and in a towering rage.
"Oh! Ramin, my friend," he groaned, "never take a housekeeper,
and never let her know you have any property. They are harpies,
Ramin,--harpies! such a day as I have had; first, the lawyer, who
comes to write down 'my last testamentary dispositions,' as he calls
them; then the priest, who gently hints that I am a dying man. Oh,
what a day!"
"And _did_ you make your will, my excellent friend?" softly asked
Monsieur Ramin, with a keen look.
"Make my will?" indignantly exclaimed the old man; "make my will? what
do you mean, sir? do you mean to say I am dying?"
"Heaven forbid!" piously ejaculated Ramin.
"Then why do you ask me if I had been making my will?" angrily resumed
the old man. He then began to be extremely abusive.
When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a
violent temper, had the meekness of a lamb. He bore the treatment
of his host with the meekest patience, and having first locked the
door so as to make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he
watched Monsieur Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the
Excellent Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived:
"He is going fast," he thought; "and unless I settle the agreement
to-night, and get it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it will be too
late."
"My dear friend," he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old
gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his
back, "you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which
the greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature. It is
really distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant,
suddenly converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a
legacy! Lawyers and priests flock around you like birds of prey,
drawn hither by the scent of gold! Oh, the miseries of having delicate
health combined with a sound constitution and large property!"
"Ramin," groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor's
face, "you are again going to talk to me about that annuity--I know
you are!"
"My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful
position."
"I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying," whimpered
Monsieur Bonelle.
"Absurd, my dear sir. Dying? I will prove to you that you have never
been in better health. In the first place you feel no pain."
"Excepting from rheumatism," groaned Monsieur Bonelle.
"Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all--"
"No, it is not all," interrupted the old man with great irritability;
"what would you say to the gout getting higher and higher up every
day?"
"The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else--"
"Yes, there is something else," sharply said Monsieur Bonelle. "There
is an asthma that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in
my head that does not allow me a moment's ease. But if you think I am
dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken."
"No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile suppose we
talk of this annuity. Shall we say one thousand francs a year."
"What!" asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.
"My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum,"
hurriedly rejoined Ramin.
Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle
slumber. The mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.
"Monsieur Bonelle."
No reply.
"My excellent friend."
Utter silence.
"Are you asleep?"
A long pause.
"Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?"
Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.
"Ramin," said he, sententiously, "you are a fool; the house brings me
in four thousand as it is."
This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own
reasons for wishing to seem to believe it true.
"Good Heavens!" said he, with an air of great innocence, "who could
have thought it, and the lodgers constantly running away. Four
thousand? Well, then, you shall have four thousand."
Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured "The mere
rental--nonsense!" He then folded his hands on his breast, and
appeared to compose himself to sleep.
"Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!" Ramin said, admiringly:
but for once omnipotent flattery failed in its effect: "So acute!"
continued he, with a stealthy glance at the old man, who remained
perfectly unmoved.
"I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred francs."
Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had
already been mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle's
ambition. But the ruse failed in its effect; the sick man never so
much as stirred.
"But, my dear friend," urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling
remonstrance, "there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute.
How can you expect that I shall give you more when your constitution
is so good, and you are to be such a long liver?"
"Yes, but I may be carried off one of these days," quietly observed
the old man, evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to
account.
"Indeed, and I hope so," muttered the mercer, who was getting very
ill-tempered.
"You see," soothingly continued Bonelle, "you are so good a man of
business, Ramin, that you will double the actual value of the house
in no time. I am a quiet, easy person, indifferent to money; otherwise
this house would now bring me in eight thousand at the very least."
"Eight thousand!" indignantly exclaimed the mercer. "Monsieur Bonelle,
you have no conscience. Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable.
Six thousand francs a year (I don't mind saying six) is really a very
handsome income for a man of your quiet habits. Come, be reasonable."
But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and closed his eyes
once more. What between opening and shutting them for the next quarter
of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven
thousand francs.
"Very well, Ramin, agreed," he quietly said; "you have made an
unconscionable bargain." To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.
As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had
been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of
whispered abuse for duping her "poor dear innocent old master into
such a bargain." The mercer bore it all very patiently: he could make
all allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and
bade her a jovial good evening.
The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of
old Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.
Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man
every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first
quarter of the annuity would never be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath,
told the story as a grievance to every one; people listened, shook
their heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever
fellow.
A month elapsed. As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics,
where he had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in
paying her rent, he heard a light step on the stairs. Presently a
sprightly gentleman, in buoyant health and spirits, wearing the form
of Monsieur Bonelle, appeared. Ramin stood aghast.
"Well, Ramin," gaily said the old man, "how are you getting on? Have
you been tormenting the poor widow up stairs? Why, man, we must live
and let live!"
"Monsieur Bonelle," said the mercer, in a hollow tone; "may I ask
where are your rheumatics?"
"Gone, my dear friend,--gone."
"And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day,"
exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a voice of anguish.
"It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether," composedly
replied Bonelle.
"And your asthma--"
"The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived.
It is, I have been told, the only complaint that Methusalah was
troubled with." With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and
disappeared.
Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense
disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped. When he
was discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent
Opportunity of taking his revenge.
The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighborhood, whenever Monsieur
Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane. In the
first frenzy of his despair, Ramin refused to pay; he accused every
one of having been in a plot to deceive him; he turned off Catharine
and expelled his porter: he publicly accused the lawyer and priest of
conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor and lost it. He had
another brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite, in
which he was cast in heavy damages. Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble
himself with useless remonstrances, but when his annuity was refused,
employed such good legal arguments, as the exasperated mercer could
not possibly resist.
Ten years have elapsed, and MM. Ramin and Bonelle still live on. For a
house which would have been dear at fifty thousand francs, the draper
has already handed over seventy thousand.
The once red-faced, jovial Ramin is now a pale haggard man, of sour
temper and aspect. To add to his anguish he sees the old man thrive on
that money which it breaks his heart to give. Old Marguerite takes a
malicious pleasure in giving him an exact account of their good cheer,
and in asking him if he does not think Monsieur looks better and
better every day. Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by
giving his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his
house. But this he cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would
take some Excellent Opportunity of dying without his knowledge, and
giving some other person an Excellent Opportunity of persecuting him,
and receiving the money in his stead.
The last accounts of the victim of Excellent Opportunities represent
him as being gradually worn down with disappointment. There seems
every probability of his being the first to leave the world; for
Bonelle is heartier than ever.
* * * * *
[FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS.]