As he did so, the belated luncher called 'Waiter!' but Paul was
otherwise engaged. His entire nervous system seemed to have been
stirred up with a pole. With a hoarse cry he dashed forward. He would
destroy this pig who chucked his Jeanne under the chin.
The first intimation M. Bredin had of the declaration of war was the
impact of a French roll on his ear. It was one of those nobbly, chunky
rolls with sharp corners, almost as deadly as a piece of shrapnel. M.
Bredin was incapable of jumping, but he uttered a howl and his vast
body quivered like a stricken jelly. A second roll, whizzing by,
slapped against the wall. A moment later a cream-bun burst in sticky
ruin on the proprietor's left eye.
The belated luncher had been anxious to pay his bill and go, but he
came swiftly to the conclusion that this was worth stopping on for. He
leaned back in his chair and watched. M. Bredin had entrenched himself
behind the cash-desk, peering nervously at Paul through the cream, and
Paul, pouring forth abuse in his native tongue, was brandishing a
chocolate eclair. The situation looked good to the spectator.
It was spoiled by Jeanne, who seized Paul by the arm and shook him,
adding her own voice to the babel. It was enough. The eclair fell to
the floor. Paul's voice died away. His face took on again its crushed,
hunted expression. The voice of M. Bredin, freed from competition, rose
shrill and wrathful.
'The marksman is getting sacked,' mused the onlooker, diagnosing the
situation.
He was right. The next moment Paul, limp and depressed, had retired to
the kitchen passage, discharged. It was here, after a few minutes, that
Jeanne found him.
'Fool! Idiot! Imbecile!' said Jeanne.
Paul stared at her without speaking.
'To throw rolls at the _patron_. Imbecile!'
'He--' began Paul.
'Bah! And what if he did? Must you then attack him like a mad dog? What
is it to you?'
Paul was conscious of a dull longing for sympathy, a monstrous sense
of oppression. Everything was going wrong. Surely Jeanne must be
touched by his heroism? But no. She was scolding furiously. Suppose
Andromeda had turned and scolded Perseus after he had slain the
sea-monster! Paul mopped his forehead with his napkin. The bottom had
dropped out of his world.
'Jeanne!'
'Bah! Do not talk to me, idiot of a little man. Almost you lost me my
place also. The _patron_ was in two minds. But I coaxed him. A
fine thing that would have been, to lose my good place through your
foolishness. To throw rolls. My goodness!'
She swept back into the room again, leaving Paul still standing by the
kitchen door. Something seemed to have snapped inside him. How long he
stood there he did not know, but presently from the dining-room came
calls of 'Waiter!' and automatically he fell once more into his work,
as an actor takes up his part. A stranger would have noticed nothing
remarkable in him. He bustled to and fro with undiminished energy.
At the end of the day M. Bredin paid him his eighteen shillings with a
grunt, and Paul walked out of the restaurant a masterless man.
He went to his attic and sat down on the bed. Propped up against the
wall was the picture. He looked at it with unseeing eyes. He stared
dully before him.
Then thoughts came to him with a rush, leaping and dancing in his mind
like imps in Hades. He had a curious sense of detachment. He seemed to
be watching himself from a great distance.
This was the end. The little imps danced and leaped; and then one
separated itself from the crowd, to grow bigger than, the rest, to
pirouette more energetically. He rose. His mind was made up. He would
kill himself.
He went downstairs and out into the street. He thought hard as he
walked. He would kill himself, but how?
His preoccupation was so great that an automobile, rounding a corner,
missed him by inches as he crossed the road. The chauffeur shouted
angrily at him as he leapt back.
Paul shook his fist at the retreating lights.
'Pig!' he shouted. 'Assassin! Scoundrel! Villain! Would you kill me? I
will take your number, rascal. I will inform the police. Villain!'
A policeman had strolled up and was eyeing him curiously. Paul turned
to him, full of his wrongs.
'Officer,' he cried, 'I have a complaint. These pigs of chauffeurs!
They are reckless. They drive so recklessly. Hence the great number of
accidents.'
'Awful!' said the policeman. 'Pass along, sonny.'
Paul walked on, fuming. It was abominable that these chauffeurs--And
then an idea came to him. He had found a way.
* * * * *
It was quiet in the Park. He had chosen the Park because it was dark
and there would be none to see and interfere. He waited long in the
shadow by the roadside. Presently from the darkness there came the
distant drone of powerful engines. Lights appeared, like the blazing
eyes of a dragon swooping down to devour its prey.
He ran out into the road with a shout.
It was an error, that shout. He had intended it for an inarticulate
farewell to his picture, to Jeanne, to life. It was excusable to the
driver of the motor that he misinterpreted it. It seemed to him a cry
of warning. There was a great jarring of brakes, a scuttering of locked
wheels on the dry road, and the car came to a standstill a full yard
from where he stood.
'What the deuce--' said a cool voice from behind the lights.
Paul struck his chest and folded his arms.
'I am here,' he cried. 'Destroy me!'
'Let George do it,' said the voice, in a marked American accent. 'I
never murder on a Friday; it's unlucky. If it's not a rude question,
which asylum are you from? Halloa!'
The exclamation was one of surprise, for Paul's nerves had finally
given way, and he was now in a heap on the road, sobbing.
The man climbed down and came into the light. He was a tall young man
with a pleasant, clean-cut face. He stopped and shook Paul.
'Quit that,' he said. 'Maybe it's not true. And if it is, there's
always hope. Cut it out. What's the matter? All in?'
Paul sat up, gulping convulsively. He was thoroughly unstrung. The
cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of
desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his
troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an
occasional gulp, he proceeded to do so. The American listened
attentively.
'So you can't sell your picture, and you've lost your job, and your
girl has shaken you?' he said. 'Pretty bad, but still you've no call to
go mingling with automobile wheels. You come along with me to my hotel,
and tomorrow we'll see if we can't fix up something.'
* * * * *
There was breakfast at the hotel next morning, a breakfast to put heart
into a man. During the meal a messenger dispatched in a cab to Paul's
lodgings returned with the canvas. A deferential waiter informed the
American that it had been taken with every possible care to his suite.
'Good,' said the young man. 'If you're through, we'll go and have a
look at it.'
They went upstairs. There was the picture resting against a chair.
'Why, I call that fine,' said the young man. 'It's a cracker jack.'
Paul's heart gave a sudden leap. Could it be that here was the wealthy
connoisseur? He was wealthy, for he drove an automobile and lived in an
expensive hotel. He was a connoisseur, for he had said that the picture
was a crackerjack.
'Monsieur is kind,' murmured Paul.
'It's a bear-cat,' said the young man, admiringly.
'Monsieur is flattering,' said Paul, dimly perceiving a compliment.
'I've been looking for a picture like that,' said the young man, 'for
months.'
Paul's eyes rolled heavenwards.
'If you'll make a few alterations, I'll buy it and ask for more.'
'Alterations, monsieur?'
'One or two small ones.' He pointed to the stooping figure of the
shepherd. 'Now, you see this prominent citizen. What's he doing!'
'He is stooping,' said Paul, fervently, 'to bestow upon his loved one a
kiss. And she, sleeping, all unconscious, dreaming of him--'
'Never mind about her. Fix your mind on him. Willie is the "star" in
this show. You have summed him up accurately. He is stooping. Stooping
good. Now, if that fellow was wearing braces and stooped like that,
you'd say he'd burst those braces, wouldn't you?'
With a somewhat dazed air Paul said that he thought he would. Till now
he had not looked at the figure from just that view-point.
'You'd say he'd bust them?'
'Assuredly, monsieur.'
'No!' said the young man, solemnly, tapping him earnestly on the chest.
'That's where you're wrong. Not if they were Galloway's Tried and
Proven. Galloway's Tried and Proven will stand any old strain you care
to put on them. See small bills. Wear Galloway's Tried and Proven, and
fate cannot touch you. You can take it from me. I'm the company's
general manager.'
'Indeed, monsieur!'
'And I'll make a proposition to you. Cut out that mossy bank, and make
the girl lying in a hammock. Put Willie in shirt-sleeves instead of a
bathrobe, and fix him up with a pair of the Tried and Proven, and I'll
give you three thousand dollars for that picture and a retaining fee of
four thousand a year to work for us and nobody else for any number of
years you care to mention. You've got the goods. You've got just the
touch. That happy look on Willie's face, for instance. You can see in a
minute why he's so happy. It's because he's wearing the Tried and
Proven, and he knows that however far he stoops they won't break. Is
that a deal?'
Paul's reply left no room for doubt. Seizing the young man firmly round
the waist, he kissed him with extreme fervour on both cheeks.
'Here, break away!' cried the astonished general manager. 'That's no
way to sign a business contract.'
* * * * *
It was at about five minutes after one that afternoon that Constable
Thomas Parsons, patrolling his beat, was aware of a man motioning to
him from the doorway of Bredin's Parisian Cafe and Restaurant. The man
looked like a pig. He grunted like a pig. He had the lavish
_embonpoint_ of a pig. Constable Parsons suspected that he had a
porcine soul. Indeed, the thought flitted across Constable Parsons'
mind that, if he were to tie a bit of blue ribbon round his neck, he
could win prizes with him at a show.
'What's all this?' he inquired, halting.
The stout man talked volubly in French. Constable Parsons shook his
head.
'Talk sense,' he advised.
'In dere,' cried the stout man, pointing behind him into the
restaurant, 'a man, a--how you say?--yes, sacked. An employe whom I
yesterday sacked, today he returns. I say to him, "Cochon, va!"'
'What's that?'
'I say, "Peeg, go!" How you say? Yes, "pop off!" I say, "Peeg, pop
off!" But he--no, no; he sits and will not go. Come in, officer, and
expel him.'
With massive dignity the policeman entered the restaurant. At one of
the tables sat Paul, calm and distrait. From across the room Jeanne
stared freezingly.
'What's all this?' inquired Constable Parsons. Paul looked up.
'I too,' he admitted, 'I cannot understand. Figure to yourself,
monsieur. I enter this cafe to lunch, and this man here would expel
me.'
'He is an employe whom I--I myself--have but yesterday dismissed,'
vociferated M. Bredin. 'He has no money to lunch at my restaurant.'
The policeman eyed Paul sternly.
'Eh?' he said. 'That so? You'd better come along.'
Paul's eyebrows rose.
Before the round eyes of M. Bredin he began to produce from his pockets
and to lay upon the table bank-notes and sovereigns. The cloth was
covered with them.
He picked up a half-sovereign.
'If monsieur,' he said to the policeman, 'would accept this as a slight
consolation for the inconvenience which this foolish person here has
caused him--'
'Not half,' said Mr Parsons, affably. 'Look here'--he turned to the
gaping proprietor--'if you go on like this you'll be getting yourself
into trouble. See? You take care another time.'
Paul called for the bill of fare.
It was the inferior person who had succeeded to his place as waiter who
attended to his needs during the meal; but when he had lunched it was
Jeanne who brought his coffee.
She bent over the table.
'You sold your picture, Paul--yes?' she whispered. 'For much money? How
glad I am, dear Paul. Now we will--'
Paul met her glance coolly.
'Will you be so kind,' he said, 'as to bring me also a cigarette, my
good girl?'