DRIFTWOOD
I was nursing Scrappie. Herbert came into the bedroom and started to
speak slowly as if he wasn't sure how I would take what he was going to
say.
"Fellow out here who is hungry. What shall I do?"
"Feed him," said I. Herbert did not have to tell me that he had no money
to give the man to buy a meal. "Couldn't you ask him to dinner if he is
all right?"
"Well, he is sort of an old chap," said Herbert doubtfully.
I lighted a candle and put it on the end of the mantel-piece nearest to
the baby's bed. She was perfectly contented to go to sleep alone if she
could watch a candle flicker.
When I had settled Scrappie and opened the window and closed the door
gently, I went into the dining-room and found Mr. Thompson. Sparse grey
hair, watery blue eyes, a talkative individual who hoped he was not
bothering us too much. He wore a frock coat with shiny revers. His cuffs
were unstarched and frayed, but they were clean. Herbert had brought in
some cold boiled potatoes. In those days you bought them cooked at the
_charcuterie_ for the same price that you got them raw at the
greengrocer's. It was a good scheme. You could peel them and slice them
in a jiffy,--then warm them with eggs broken up and scrambled in the pan
beside them. This with cheese and nuts and liqueurs made a meal without
using too much gas. You did it yourself, using no more energy than would
be taken out of you if it had been done by a cook.
Mr. Thompson did not lie when he told Herbert he was hungry. He had
three helpings of everything. He said little during the meal, but he did
not eat with his knife. When it came to cigars, he pushed back his chair
and spread out his hands to the _boulet_ fire. Casting his eye from the
molding to the floor, he included the dining-room and all the rest of
the apartment with a sweeping gesture and a couple of "Ha-Has."
"From the looks of this joint, you two youngsters haven't any more money
than you need. This is a good joke on me, too good a joke to keep to
myself. You have given me a square deal along with a square meal, and I
appreciate it. I have lived for years in this Quarter and have earned
precious little money. Sort of a down-and-outer. I am, I suppose, one of
the Quarter's charity patients. Don't worry. I am not going to beg of
you. First time I came to Paris, it was by way of England. I stayed a
long time in Oxford and made friends with the Cowley Fathers. Then I
buried myself in the Bibliothèque Nationale, for I was starting a thesis
in church history."
"Indeed," cried Herbert. "I have a fellowship in Church History myself.
What is your subject?"
"Religious orders after the Reformation," said Mr. Thompson.
"Have you published anything?" asked my husband.
"No," said Mr. Thompson. "Queer thing life is. We get loose from our
moorings when we least expect it. You won't believe me, but American
generosity was my undoing!"
"How could that be?" I put in.
"Don't you know," said Mr. Thompson, "that we are not as much the
captain of our souls as we like to think?"
He was in a steamer chair now, and lying back, he blew smoke at the
ceiling.
"But you were saying, Mr. Thompson," said I.
"I was saying more than I ought to," he mused.
He had forgotten his cigar. Herbert twisted a bit of newspaper, touched
it to the glowing _boulets_ and held it out to Mr. Thompson. Matches are
expensive in France.
"Oh!" he started. "I was away back years ago. Thank you. I was wrong a
minute ago when I told you I had said too much. I have said too little.
You have made me feel at home, and I shall be frank with you. It
sometimes wrecks a fellow's career if he receives just a little too
much help. What I am talking about is quite a different thing from what
I may have suggested just now. Not a person spoiled with too much money.
But I was spoiled by the fact that at a certain time, I was able to put
my hands on ever so little money when it was not good for me. Not the
money itself, you understand, but the fact that the game is so easy."
"But I don't understand," I protested.
"Of course you don't," said Mr. Thompson.
He threw the butt of his cigar on the floor, put his foot on it, and
took another from Herbert's box.
"Sorry I haven't better cigars to give you," said my husband. "These
_carrés à deux sous_ just suit my speed."
Alas for the _carrés à deux sous_! Of them as of many of our joys we
must say Ichabod.
"The time came when I ran out of money--but altogether out of money, you
understand. I waited until I was pretty hungry before I told anybody.
Then the American Consul did something for me. Somebody gave me a pair
of shoes. Other persons gave me money, and the day was saved. Again I
became absorbed in my work, to be interrupted by poverty. This time I
went to the pastor of the American Church. He looked me over. Must have
thought I was a good case, as he saw to it that several people did
something for me. After all, it comes easily, and I have lived like
that for years. Sometimes my clothes don't fit very well, but what is
the difference. It has grown upon me until I am utterly unfit to earn my
living. You get nothing twice from the Consulate, and churches are not
good for much. Besides, the churches keep a list of dead-beats. It is
the individual Americans one meets that give away their money
carelessly. I found somebody who listened sympathetically to my
hard-luck story. The story itself was no lie the first time. But it was
so easy--there was the temptation. I tell you frankly that I fell. I
discovered that I could do it again when the hard-luck story was not
true."
"I hunted you up," continued Mr. Thompson, "with the idea of getting
something out of you. I suppose if I put as much energy into holding
down a job as I do this, I could earn my living. But the habit of living
on the kindness of other people has me in its grip, and I do not stick
to work when it is given to me. I have been pretty faithful to the
Bibliothèque all these years, for it is heated there. I can read my
paper, write some letters and study a little on my church history. The
thesis is growing slowly, but that is all I can say I have done these
twelve years.
"There are other people who do the same thing, you know. You have met
them without knowing it. Artist fellows, youngsters as well as old ones,
understand the game. Do you know how they work it? It is known now, for
instance, that you receive informally every Wednesday. There are other
days and hosts of women. So it goes. A fellow can get along very cheaply
like that. Pay thirty or forty francs a month for a place to live and
work, two sous each morning for _café au lait_ passed across the
zinc--good coffee too, as you perhaps know. They let you bring your roll
with you if you like. It will cost a sou. One roll and a cup of coffee
is enough after you get used to it. Your only large expense is the noon
meal.
"Generally the evening meal you can pick up. You find in the social
register the names of all the ladies, kind and unobservant, who have
days at home. You stick a big paper on your wall and mark it off in
seven columns, one for each day of the week. You make a list of the
women who have receiving days, and you drop in somewhere every afternoon
about five-thirty. The tea party is pretty well finished, but there is
usually plenty of food left. The ladies have to provide for more than
really come. You do that yourself, Mrs. Gibbons. The ladies do not
notice that you eat more than one or two sandwiches and plenty of cake.
If they do notice it, it makes them feel happy, and there is your
supper. If you do it systematically with a list like mine, you do not
have to go to Mrs. X's house more than twice in the winter. A lot of
people in the American colony have receiving days. It is easy enough to
know them. All of the boys know a few, and we take each other around.
The artist fellows have a cinch. All they have to do, if they have a
conscience, is to present the hostesses to whom they are the most
indebted, with a couple of worthless sketches. Nobody ever suspects
anything.
"You can slide in and out in the Latin Quarter and meet any number of
charming people. They never stay too long and there are always new ones
coming in. No hostess is superior to the flattery implied when her tea
is appreciated. I have learned to praise sandwiches so that I can get a
fair supply. I write an article occasionally, and that covers my rent.
Clothes are an easy matter. Any number of people in Paris will give away
clothes. You see I am a deadbeat. I was a deadbeat to-day when I saw in
the _Herald_ that Mrs. Gibbons was going to be at home this afternoon."
Mr. Thompson got up to go.
"Where did you put your overcoat?" asked Herbert.
"I have none," said my guest.
Herbert's eyes met mine. I telegraphed "Yes."
Certainly we gave Herbert's old overcoat to Mr. Thompson. As we talked
about it afterwards, Herbert observed,
"We could not help giving him the coat, could we?"
"No, of course not."
We never saw Mr. Thompson again. It isn't in the picture. Driftwood!