There is generally a brisk exhilaration of spirits in the return to any
special amusement or light accomplishment associated with the pleasant
memories of earlier youth; and remarkably so, I believe, when the
amusement or accomplishment has been that of the amateur stage-player.
Certainly I have known persons of very grave pursuits, of very dignified
character and position, who seem to regain the vivacity of boyhood when
disguising look and voice for a part in some drawing-room comedy or
charade. I might name statesmen of solemn repute rejoicing to raise and
to join in a laugh at their expense in such travesty of their habitual
selves.
The reader must not therefore be surprised, nor, I trust, deem it
inconsistent with the more serious attributes of Graham's character, if
the Englishman felt the sort of joyful excitement I describe, as, in his
way to the cafe Jean Jacques, he meditated the role he had undertaken;
and the joyousness was heightened beyond the mere holiday sense of
humouristic pleasantry by the sanguine hope that much to effect his
lasting happiness might result from the success of the object for which
his disguise was assumed.
It was just twenty minutes past nine when he arrived at the cafe Jean
Jacques. He dismissed the _fiacre_ and entered.
The apartment devoted to customers comprised two large rooms. The first
was the cafe properly speaking; the second, opening on it, was the
billiard-room. Conjecturing that he should probably find the person of
whom he was in quest employed at the billiard-table, Graham passed
thither at once. A tall man, who might be seven-and-forty, with a long
black beard, slightly grizzled, was at play with a young man of perhaps
twenty-eight, who gave him odds,--as better players of twenty-eight ought
to give odds to a player, though originally of equal force, whose eye is
not so quick, whose hand is not so steady, as they were twenty years ago.
Said Graham to himself, "The bearded man is my Vicomte." He called for a
cup of coffee, and seated himself on a bench at the end of the room.
The bearded man was far behind in the game. It was his turn to play;
the balls were placed in the most awkward position for him. Graham
himself was a fair billiard-player, both in the English and the French
game. He said to himself, "No man who can make a cannon there should
accept odds." The bearded man made a cannon; the bearded man continued
to make cannons; the bearded man did not stop till he had won the game.
The gallery of spectators was enthusiastic. Taking care to speak in
very bad, very English-French, Graham expressed to one of the
enthusiasts seated beside him his admiration of the bearded man's
playing, and ventured to ask if the bearded man were a professional
or an amateur player.
"Monsieur," replied the enthusiast, taking a short cutty-pipe from his
mouth, "it is an amateur, who has been a great player in his day, and is
so proud that he always takes less odds than he ought of a younger man.
It is not once in a month that he comes out as he has done to-night; but
to-night he has steadied his hand. He has had six petits verres."
"Ah, indeed! Do you know his name?"
"I should think so: he buried my father, my two aunts, and my wife."
"Buried?" said Graham, more and more British in his accent; "I don't
understand."
"Monsieur, you are English."
"I confess it."
"And a stranger to the Faubourg Montmartre."
"True."
"Or you would have heard of M. Giraud, the liveliest member of the State
Company for conducting funerals. They are going to play La Poule."
Much disconcerted, Graham retreated into the cafe, and seated himself
haphazard at one of the small tables. Glancing round the room, he saw no
one in whom he could conjecture the once brilliant Vicomte.
The company appeared to him sufficiently decent, and especially what may
be called local. There were some blouses drinking wine, no doubt of the
cheapest and thinnest; some in rough, coarse dresses, drinking beer.
These were evidently English, Belgian, or German artisans. At one table,
four young men, who looked like small journeymen, were playing cards.
At three other tables, men older, better dressed, probably shop-keepers,
were playing dominos. Graham scrutinized these last, but among them all
could detect no one corresponding to his ideal of the Vicomte de Mauleon.
"Probably," thought he, "I am too late, or perhaps he will not be here
this evening. At all events, I will wait a quarter of an hour." Then,
the _garcon_ approaching his table, he deemed it necessary to call for
something, and, still in strong English accent, asked for lemonade and an
evening journal. The _garcon_ nodded and went his way. A monsieur at
the round table next his own politely handed to him the "Galignani,"
saying in very good English, though unmistakably the good English of a
Frenchman, "The English journal, at your service."
Graham bowed his head, accepted the "Galignani," and inspected his
courteous neighbour. A more respectable-looking man no Englishman could
see in an English country town. He wore an unpretending flaxen wig, with
limp whiskers that met at the chin, and might originally have been the
same colour as the wig, but were now of a pale gray,--no beard, no
mustache. He was dressed with the scrupulous cleanliness of a sober
citizen,--a high white neckcloth, with a large old-fashioned pin,
containing a little knot of hair covered with glass or crystal, and
bordered with a black framework, in which were inscribed letters,--
evidently a mourning pin, hallowed to the memory of lost spouse or child,
--a man who, in England, might be the mayor of a cathedral town, at least
the town-clerk. He seemed suffering from some infirmity of vision, for
he wore green spectacles. The expression of his face was very mild and
gentle; apparently he was about sixty years old,--somewhat more.
Graham took kindly to his neighbour, insomuch that, in return for the
"Galignani," he offered him a cigar, lighting one himself.
His neighbour refused politely.
"Merci! I never smoke, never; _mon medecin_ forbids it. If I could be
tempted, it would be by, an English cigar. Ah, how you English beat us
in all things,--your ships, your iron, your tabac,--which you do not
grow!"
This speech rendered literally as we now render it may give the idea of a
somewhat vulgar speaker. But there was something in the man's manner, in
his smile, in his courtesy, which did not strike Graham as vulgar; on the
contrary, he thought within himself, "How instinctive to all Frenchmen
good breeding is!"
Before, however, Graham had time to explain to his amiable neighbour the
politico-economical principle according to which England, growing no
tobacco, had tobacco much better than France, which did grow it, a rosy
middle-aged monsieur made his appearance, saying hurriedly to Graham's
neighbour, "I'm afraid I'm late, but there is still a good half-hour
before us if you will give me my revenge."
"Willingly, Monsieur Georges. _Garcon_, the dominos."
"Have you been playing at billiards?" asked M. Georges.
"Yes, two games."
"With success?"
"I won the first, and lost the second through the defect of my eyesight;
the game depended on a stroke which would have been easy to an infant,--
I missed it."
Here the dominos arrived, and M. Georges began shuffling them; the other
turned to Graham and asked politely if he understood the game.
"A little, but not enough to comprehend why it is said to require so much
skill."
"It is chiefly an affair of memory with me; but M. Georges, my opponent,
has the talent of combination, which I have not."
"Nevertheless," replied M. Georges, gruffly, "you are not easily beaten;
it is for you to play first, Monsieur Lebeau." Graham almost started.
Was it possible! This mild, limp-whiskered, flaxen-wigged man Victor de
Mauleon, the Don Juan of his time; the last person in the room he should
have guessed. Yet, now examining his neighbour with more attentive eye,
he wondered at his stupidity in not having recognized at once the
ci-devant _gentilhomme_ and _beau garcon_. It happens frequently that
our imagination plays us this trick; we form to ourselves an idea of some
one eminent for good or for evil,--a poet, a statesman, a general, a
murderer, a swindler, a thief. The man is before us, and our ideas have
gone into so different a groove that he does not excite a suspicion; we
are told who he is, and immediately detect a thousand things that ought
to have proved his identity.
Looking thus again with rectified vision at the false Lebeau, Graham
observed an elegance and delicacy of feature which might, in youth, have
made the countenance very handsome, and rendered it still good-looking,
nay, prepossessing. He now noticed, too, the slight Norman accent, its
native harshness of breadth subdued into the modulated tones which
bespoke the habits of polished society. Above all, as M. Lebeau moved
his dominos with one hand, not shielding his pieces with the other (as M.
Georges warily did), but allowing it to rest carelessly on the table, he
detected the hands of the French aristocrat,--hands that had never done
work; never (like those of the English noble of equal birth) been
embrowned or freckled, or roughened or enlarged by early practice in
athletic sports; but hands seldom seen save in the higher circles of
Parisian life,--partly perhaps of hereditary formation, partly owing
their texture to great care begun in early youth, and continued
mechanically in after life,--with long taper fingers and polished nails;
white and delicate as those of a woman, but not slight, not feeble;
nervous and sinewy as those of a practised swordsman.
Graham watched the play, and Lebeau good-naturedly explained to him its
complications as it proceeded; though the explanation, diligently
attended to by M. Georges, lost Lebeau the game.
The dominos were again shuffled, and during that operation M. Georges
said, "By the way, Monsieur Lebeau, you promised to find me a _locataire_
for my second floor; have you succeeded?"
"Not yet. Perhaps you had better advertise in 'Les Petites Affiches.'
You ask too much for the habitues of this neighbourhood,--one hundred
francs a month."
"But the lodging is furnished, and well too, and has four rooms. One
hundred francs are not much."
A thought flashed upon Graham. "Pardon, Monsieur," he said, "have you an
_appartement de garcon_ to let furnished?"
"Yes, Monsieur, a charming one. Are you in search of an apartment?"
"I have some idea of taking one, but only by the month. I am but just
arrived at Paris, and I have business which may keep me here a few weeks.
I do but require a bedroom and a small cabinet, and the rent must be
modest. I am not a milord."
"I am sure we could arrange, Monsieur," said M. Georges, "though I could
not well divide my logement. But one hundred francs a month is not
much!"
"I fear it is more than I can afford; however, if you will give me your
address, I will call and see the rooms,--say the day after to-morrow.
Between this and then, I expect letters which may more clearly decide my
movements."
"If the apartments suit you," said M. Lebeau, "you will at least be in
the house of a very honest man, which is more than can be said of every
one who lets furnished apartments. The house, too, has a concierge, with
a handy wife who will arrange your rooms and provide you with coffee--or
tea, which you English prefer--if you breakfast at home." Here M.
Georges handed a card to Graham, and asked what hour he would call.
"About twelve, if that hour is convenient," said Graham, rising. "I
presume there is a restaurant in the neighbourhood where I could dine
reasonably."
"_Je crois bien_, half-a-dozen. I can recommend to you one where you can
dine _en prince_ for thirty sous. And if you are at Paris on business,
and want any letters written in private, I can also recommend to you my
friend here, M. Lebeau. Ay, and on affairs his advice is as good as a
lawyer's, and his fee a bagatelle."
"Don't believe all that Monsieur Georges so flatteringly says of me," put
in M. Lebeau, with a modest half-smile, and in English. "I should tell
you that I, like yourself, am recently arrived at Paris, having bought
the business and goodwill of my predecessor in the apartment I occupy;
and it is only to the respect due to his antecedents, and on the score of
a few letters of recommendation which I bring from Lyons, that I can
attribute the confidence shown to me, a stranger in this neighbourhood.
Still I have some knowledge of the world, and I am always glad if I can
be of service to the English. I love the English"--he said this with a
sort of melancholy earnestness which seemed sincere; and then added in a
more careless tone,--"I have met with much kindness from them in the
course of a chequered life."
"You seem a very good fellow,--in fact, a regular trump, Monsieur
Lebeau," replied Graham, in the same language. "Give me your address.
To say truth, I am a very poor French scholar, as you must have seen, and
am awfully bother-headed how to manage some correspondence on matters
with which I am entrusted by my employer, so that it is a lucky chance
which has brought me acquainted with you."
M. Lebeau inclined his head gracefully, and drew from a very neat morocco
case a card, which Graham took and pocketed. Then he paid for his coffee
and lemonade, and returned home well satisfied with the evening's
adventure.