FRIEZECOAT AT HOME.
The morning after Captain Chauvin had admitted the young Irishman into
his confidences was wet and gloomy. At half-past ten a.m. O'Hara was
seated in front of his dressing-table engaged in an unpleasant operation
entailed by the usages of modern society, that of shaving himself. He
wore moustaches and mouche, but fashion in the French capital
necessitated the removal of the whiskers, and, razor in hand, skimming
over a surface of lathered skin, he peered into the toilet-glass, when a
loud tap resounded on the panel of the door. Before he had time to make
answer the lock was turned, the door thrown open, and the applicant for
admittance had entered with heavy step. O'Hara turned round and stared
at him.
It was the very man whom he had been wishing to see, the stranger, whose
name was not Beelzebub, clad in the same long frieze coat, the skirts of
which were met by spatterdashes, which totally shut out his trousers
from view. His boots were covered with mud, his face perspiring from
exercise; he took off his hat and sat down abruptly by the table, on
which a pile of loose journals, letters, and other literary matter was
strewn.
'Welcome,' said the interrupted shaver with cheerfulness (although he
had gashed his jaw), advancing towards his visitor.
'Stay where you are, Mr. Manus O'Hara, and finish your shaving. Passing
by this way--thought I'd call in to see you.'
O'Hara regarded him with a broad stare of wonderment. How had this
stranger found out his name and lodging? His looks must have conveyed
the questions.
'How do I know your name and where to find you? you would ask,' said the
stranger. 'Spiritual clairvoyance. Shave yourself.'
O'Hara smiled, said nothing, but determined to deal with the humorist in
his own coin, and resumed his position before the glass.
Friezecoat commenced fumbling amid the letters and papers on the table.
O'Hara saw the movement reflected in the mirror, turned round, and said
calmly:
'There are private documents there.'
'You have no right to leave them exposed,' retorted the stranger
imperturbably.
'Most of my visitors are gentlemen; at least, in their habits,' said
O'Hara with quiet irony.
'Not all,' said the stranger as quietly.
'So I see.'
'For instance, I'm not a gentleman--don't want to be one,' said the
stranger. 'I'm content to be a man. Finish your shaving.'
O'Hara looked at him, undecided whether to lose temper or laugh;
finally, again turned to the glass and resumed the operation on his
beard with a studious show of deliberateness. He could see, however,
with pleasure, in the reflection of the table, that the stranger had not
chosen to meddle a second time with the loose manuscripts before him.
After removing the last wanton hair, disburdening his jaws of the
accumulated lather, wiping his cheek with the towel, softly dusting the
irritated flesh with powder, carefully drying the razor and returning it
to its case, he turned round in his seat, faced his whimsical visitor,
and said deliberately:
'I have finished.'
'Come away,' said the stranger, and he descended the stairs. 'You must
accompany me to the wild beast's den. I have something to say to you.'
O'Hara followed him; they entered a _voiture_, and the stranger gave the
word, to the Rue des Fossés St. Victor. The street which was called
Loustarol in the revolutionary times corresponds with the Rue des Fossés
St. Victor of to-day. It lies in the thick network of schools behind
the church of St. Etienne du Mont, between the thoroughfares named in
honour of the great French mathematician, Déscartes, and the great
Swedish naturalist, Linnæus. Its site was formerly occupied by the
cloisters of Philippe Auguste, and here stood the convent of _Les Dames
Anglaises_ and the Scotch College. Even still there is a scholarly
sedateness in the neighbourhood. The house to which they were driven was
entered by a long-walled avenue with prison-like wickets at intervals,
ending in an open iron gate, which permitted a view of a blooming
flower-garden. To the left, just before reaching this gate, was a door
painted _Pension Bourgeoise_, the sort of establishment in Paris which
corresponds with our boarding-house. Friezecoat raised the latch and led
in his companion.
A narrow courtyard, weakly vines trained along the wall on one side and
a range of rooms destined for lodgers on the other, conducted to the
Pension, which was a tall, narrow house, surmounted by a belvedere. A
few noisy fowls in a preternatural state of activity promenaded the
yard; a lazy dog, preternaturally lazy, too lazy even to bark, lay
curled in a corner. But the grand feature of the pension was a
one-storied wooden house, such as are frequently to be met with in
Switzerland, containing two bedrooms underneath and two in the upper
floor, which was approached by a staircase from the outside, prolonged
into a balcony, which ran in front of the structure under the shelter of
the over-hanging eaves. Friezecoat lived in this châlet. As they drew
near, the cock, at the van of his plumed seraglio, crowed like a proud
French cock; the dog moved his head and gave an indolent growl.
'Let us go aloft,' said Friezecoat, stepping on the staircase.
'I pay for these two rooms on the top, I tenant but one,' continued he;
'I have the staircase to myself, so that I can be isolated when I like.'
'You are comfortably situated,' said O'Hara, glancing round the room
into which they had entered, which was a square cleanly-papered
bed-chamber plainly furnished. A timepiece ticked on the mantel-shelf
under a neat mirror, a secretaire stood between it and the window, which
was furnished with _persiennes_, adding to the general appearance of
rusticity. A book-case, over which was disposed a trophy of pistols,
foils, and boxing-gloves, and having on either side prints of Protais'
celebrated sketches of the Chasseurs de Vincennes at work, _Avant
l'Attaque_ and _Après le Combat_, was fixed against the wall directly
opposite the door. A fauteuil, four rush-bottomed chairs, and a commode
completed the inventory of the furniture. A screened alcove concealed
the bed, and a nook in the same side of the room was cut off by a
partition and apportioned to the services of ablution.
'The view is not splendid,' said the stranger, seating himself in the
fauteuil and motioning O'Hara to a rush-bottomed chair: 'that wall with
the high trellis confines it; outside is the playground of some sort of
an institution. I like to hear the buzz of the boys amusing themselves;
it brings back my youth; then the green trees, as I see them waving
through the lattice, call up the country. Altogether,' with a tone of
enthusiasm in his voice, 'I like the shanty; it's a bit of Switzerland
in this Paris.'
'You go in for muscularity,' hinted O'Hara, glancing at the trophy of
arms.
'I have found it necessary in my career,' replied the stranger quietly.
'Smoke?'
'Yes.'
The stranger brought out a superbly-mounted Turkish pipe from a drawer,
and handed it to his visitor. 'Will you try hasheesh?'
O'Hara declined.
'I like it now and again. It lifts me into an ideal world--makes me
forget the real. Drink?'
O'Hara accepted.
The stranger produced a dust-covered bottle with a yellow seal from the
same drawer as before, and placed it before his companion. 'Comes from
Pfungst Brothers,' was the only recommendation he ventured; but that
was enough. The bottle was fitted with a false neck, to which a siphon,
closing hermetically, was attached, so that the champagne could be
sipped glass by glass, if desired, without loss of first freshness and
that titillating effervescence which makes its charm.
O'Hara drank.
'Drink again. 'Twill sweep the cobwebs from your throat.'
'Do you ever feel lonely?' demanded Friezecoat, after a pause.
'Yes, sometimes very much. Like most Irishmen, I am changeful in my
moods; to-day I find myself in the height of good spirits, to-morrow in
the lowest depths of depression.'
'That is because you are not in your native land--have no home here--no
interior. It is not well to be alone.'
The pair continued smoking. They smoked as connoisseurs, enjoying each
particular puff, following it with dreamy eyes as it ascended, until it
lost itself in gradually widening rings of lessening haze, and they
embraced the stems of their pipes for a new pull with gloating lips.
'Do you like the furniture of this room?' abruptly inquired the
stranger.
'Yes,' replied O'Hara; 'rich, not gaudy, as Shakespeare says.'
'See any want?'
'Not particularly.'
'Ah! there is one piece of furniture particularly wanting,' said the
stranger, with the manner of a man who endeavours to master bashfulness
by an exaggerated show of good-humoured, rude self-possession.
'What's that?'
'A wife!'
O'Hara turned his eyes from the pipe to Friezecoat, and Friezecoat--the
gruff, blunt-mannered, muscularly-educated Friezecoat--was positively
embarrassed, blushed like a callow boy.
'Were you ever in love?' said Friezecoat, probably with a sly view of
diverting the enemy's attention by a movement in flank.
The answer was an involuntary sigh.
'Is that it? Do you believe in love at first sight?'
'I believe in anything where love exists; it makes fools of the wisest
of us.'
'That's right; and now that the cat's out of the bag I may as well tell
you that I have fallen in love at first sight, and that's what I have to
say to you.'
O'Hara removed his pipe, and gave a long, low, significant whistle,
which reached even unto the dog in the yard, and stimulated him into an
inquisitive yelp, which might have been heard had it not been stifled in
its birth.
'Who has glamoured you--a Frenchwoman?'
'Yes; Chauvin's grand-daughter.'
'The little Song-bird?'
'The same; and I intend to go to-morrow--no, perhaps this very night, to
make a formal proposal for her hand to the old soldier.'
'In that instance, I believe, I am justified in telling you what I know
of her history, as Captain Chauvin told it to me himself,' said O'Hara,
laying down his pipe. Simply and briefly he proceeded to narrate to his
companion the story which had been confided to him. 'So now you are the
best judge,' he finished, 'whether you are justified in offering your
hand to the daughter of a--a--to a woman who will bring a bend sinister
to your escutcheon.'
'Who will bring cheerfulness to my fireside, you meant to say, sir,'
said Friezecoat, with a certain tone of displeasure in his voice. 'Bend
sinister! There's your virtuous, charitable world, that would exact
penalty of an innocent child for the sin of a progenitor who was
mouldered in his tomb before she was born. Bend sinister be blowed!
Thank God, I'm burdened with no escutcheon to put it on. There's the
coat of arms of the O'Hoolohan Roe,' stretching out his open palm, 'and
there are its supporters,' pointing to the trophy and opening a drawer,
filled with thick rouleaux of yellow Napoleons--'steel on one side and
gold on the other.'
After finishing the bottle in conjunction, they parted in good
fellowship. We were near forgetting that O'Hara mentioned something
about paying one hundred francs for which he was indebted, but the
democrat thrust back the purse which was produced, and said, 'Whenever
it suits you;' and as it didn't happen just then to suit the aristocrat,
he returned the purse unopened to his pocket. There was not a syllable
more of argument, if we except a friendly quotation which Friezecoat
sent as a parting shot from his balcony to his retiring friend: 'Hallo!
Mr. O'Hara--
'When Adam dolve, and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?'
followed by a loud laugh.
'The O'Hoolohan Roe!' said O'Hara to himself, as he lingered at the gate
of the Pension; 'that's what he called himself. Who the deuce can the
O'Hoolohan Roe be? I have heard of the M'Carthy More, of the O'Conor
Don, and of the O'Donoghue of the Glens; but never of him before.'
In the interests of our readers, we, too, must endeavour to find out who
the O'Hoolohan Roe really was.