At his feet knelt two Hindu merchants displaying their wares
At his feet knelt two Hindu merchants displaying their wares.
"When the audience was over, Jack waved everybody outside with a commanding gesture, and still lolling on his rugs—or maybe his tiger skins—told his Grand Vizier to conduct the strange man to his august presence. Then Jack rose from this throne, dismissed the Grand Vizier, and fell into Ashburton's arms roaring with laughter."
"And Ashburton had to foot the bills, I suppose," I blurted out. It is astonishing how suspicious and mean a man gets sometimes who mixes as little as I do with what Marny calls "the swim."
"Ashburton foot the bills! Not much! Listen, you six by nine! Stirling hadn't been alone more than a week when along comes the Maharajah he had met on the steamer. He lived up in that part of the country, and one of his private detectives had told him that somebody was camping out on his lot. Down he came in a white heat, with a bag of bow-strings and a squad of the 'Finest' in pink trousers and spears. I get these details all wrong, old man—they might have been in frock-coats for all I know or care—but what I'm after is the Oriental atmosphere—a sort of property background with my principal figure high up on the canvas—and one costume is as good as another.
"When the old Maharajah found out it was Jack instead of some squatter, he fell all over himself with joy. Wanted to take him up to his marble palace, open up everything, unlock a harem, trot out a half-dozen chorus girls in bangles and mosquito-net bloomers, and do a lot of comfortable things for him. But Jack said No. He was put here to stay, and here he was going to stay if he had to call out every man in his army. The old fellow sawthe joke and said all right, here heshouldstay; and before night he had moved down a tent, and a bodyguard, and an elephant or two for local color, so as to make it real Oriental for Jack, and the next day he sent him down a bag of gold, and servants, and a cook. Every pedler who appeared after that he passed along to Jack, and before Ashburton turned up Stirling had a collection of curios worth a fortune. One-half of them he gave to Ashburton and the other half be brought home to his friends. That inlaid elephant's tusk hanging up in my studio is one of them—you remember it."
As Marny finished, one of the waiters who had been serving Stirling and his guests approached our table under the direction of the Rajah's finger, and, bending over Marny, whispered something in his ear. He had the cashier's slip in his hand and Stirling's visiting card.
Marny laid the bill beside his plate, glanced at the card with a laugh, his face lighting up, and then passed it to me. It read as follows: "Not a red and no credit. Sign it for Jack."
Marny raised his eyes, nodded his head atStirling, kissed his finger-tips at him, fished up his gold chain, slid out a pencil dangling at its end, wrote his name across the slip, and said in a whisper to the waiter: "Take this to the manager and have him charge it to my account."
When we had finished our dinner and were passing out abreast of Stirling's table, the Rajah rose to his feet, his guests all standing about him, their glasses in their hands—Riggs's whiskers stood straight, he was so happy—and, waving his own glass toward my host, said: "Gentlemen, I give you Marny, the Master, the Velasquez of modern times!"
* * * * * * *
Some weeks later I called at Marny's studio. He was out. On the easel stood a full-length portrait of Riggs, the millionaire, his thin, hatchet-shaped face and white whiskers in high relief against a dark background. Scattered about the room were smaller heads bearing a strong resemblance to the great president. Jack had evidently corralled the entire family—and all out of that dinner at Sherry's.
I shut the door of Marny's studio softly behind me, tiptoed downstairs, dropped into a restaurant under the sidewalk, and dined alone.
Marny is right. The only way to hear the band is to keep up with the procession.
My philosophy is a failure.
THE SOLDO OF THECASTELLANI
The Via Garibaldi is astir to-day. From the Ponte Veneta Marina, next the caffè of the same name—it is but a step—to the big iron gates of the Public Gardens, is a moving throng of Venetians, their chatter filling the soft September air. Flags are waving—all kinds of flags, and of all colors; gay lanterns of quaint patterns are festooned from window to window; old velvets and rare stuffs, some in rags and tatters, so often have they been used, stream out from the balconies crowded with pretty Venetians shading their faces with their parasols as they watch the crowds below. In and out of this mass of holiday-makers move the pedlers crying their wares, some selling figs, their scales of polished brass jingling as they walk; some with gay handkerchiefs andscarfs draped about their trays; here and there one stands beside a tripod holding a big earthen dish filled withfulpi—miniature devil-fish about as big as a toad—so ugly that no man, however hungry, except, perhaps, a Venetian, dares swallow one with his eyes open.
Along this stretch of waving flags, gay-colored lanterns, and joyous people, are two places where the throngs are thickest. One is the Caffè Veneta Marina, its door within a cigarette's toss of the first step of the curving bridge of the same name, and the other is the Caffè Beneto, a smaller caffè farther down the wide street—wide for Venice. The Caffè Veneta Marina contains but a single room level with the street, and on gala days its tables and chairs are pushed quite out upon the marble flags. The Caffè Beneto runs through to the waters of the Grand Canal and opens on a veranda fitted with a short flight of steps at which the gondolas often land their passengers.
These two caffès are the headquarters of two opposing factions of gondoliers, enemies for centuries, since the founding of their guild, in fact—the Nicolletti, whose caps in the old days were black, and the Castellani, whose caps were red. The first were publicans, renowned for their prowess with the oar, but rough and outspoken, boastful in victory, bitter in defeat. The second were aristocrats, serving the Doge and often of great service to the State—men distinguished for their courtesy as well as for their courage. These attributes have followed these two guilds down to the present day.
Every year when the leaves of the sycamores in the Public Gardens fade into brown gold, and the great dome of the Salute, glistening like a huge pink pearl, looms above the soft September haze that blurs the water line, these two guilds—the Nicolletti and Castellani—meet in combat, each producing its best oarsmen.
To-day the course is from the wall of the Public Gardens to the Lido and back. Young Francesco Portera, the idol of the shipyards, a big-boned Venetian, short-armed and strong, is to row for the Nicolletti, and Luigi Zanaletto, a man near twice his age, for the Castellani.
For days there has been no other talk than this gondola race. Never in any September has the betting run so high. So great is the interest in the contest that every morning for a week the line of people at the Monte di Pietà—the Government pawn shop—has extended out into the great corridor of the Palazzo, every arm and pocket filled with clothing, jewels, knick-knacks, everything the owners can and cannot spare, to be pawned in exchange for the money needed to bet on this race.
There is good cause for this unusual excitement. While Luigi is known as the successful winner of the four annual races preceding this one, carrying the flag of the Castellani to victory against all comers, and each year a new contestant, many of his enemies insist that the pace has told on him; that despite his great reach of arm and sinewy legs, his strength, by reason of his age—they are all old at forty in Venice (except the Castellani)—is failing, and that for him to win this fifth and last race would be more than any guild could expect, glorious as would be the result. Others, moreknowing, argued that while Francesco had an arm like a blacksmith and could strike a blow that would fell an ox, he lacked that refinement of training which made the ideal oarsman; that it was not so much the size or quality of the muscles as it was the man who used them; that blood and brains were more than brute force.
Still another feature added zest and interest to the race, especially to members of the opposing guilds. There was an unwritten law of Venice that no man of either guild could win more than five races in succession—a foolish law, many thought, for no oarsman had accomplished it. This done, the victor retired on his laurels. Ever after he becamePrimo—the envied of his craft, the well-beloved of all the women of his quarter, young and old alike. Should Luigi Zanaletto win this fifth race, no Nicolletti could show their faces for very shame on the Piazza. For weeks thereafter they would be made the butt of the good-natured badinage of the populace. If, however, Luigi should lose this fifth and last race, the spell would be broken and some champion of the Nicolletti—perhaps this veryFrancesco, with the initiative of this race, might gain succeeding victories and so the Nicolletti regain the ground they had lost through Luigi's former prowess.
Those of his guild, however, those who knew and loved Luigi, had no such misgivings as to the outcome. They lost no sleep over his expected defeat. As their champion stepped from his gondola this beautiful September morning, laying his oar along its side, and mounted the marble steps of the landing opposite the Caffè Veneta Marina, those who got close enough to note his superb condition only added to their wagers. Six feet and an inch, straight, with willowy arms strengthened by steel cords tied in knots above the elbows, hauled taut along the wrists and anchored in the hands—grips of steel, these hands, with thumbs and forefingers strong as the jaws of a vice (he wields and guides his oar with these); waist like a woman's, the ribs outlined through the cross-barred boating shirt; back and stomach in-curved, laced and clamped by a red sash; thighs and calves of lapped leather; shoulders a beam of wood—square, hard,unyielding; neck an upward sweep tanned to a ruddy brown, ending in a mass of black hair, curly as a dog's and as strong and glistening.
And his face! Stop some morning before the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and look up into the face of the great Colleoni as he sits bestride his bronze horse, and ask the noble soldier to doff his helmet. Then follow the firm lines of the mouth, the wide brow, strong nose, and iron chin. Add to this a skin bronzed to copper by the sun, a pair of laughing eyes, and an out-pointed mustache, and you have Luigi.
And the air of the man! Only gondoliers, of all serving-men, have this humble fearlessness of manner—a manner which combines the dignity of the patrician with the humility of the servant. It is their calling which marks the difference. Small as is the gondola among all water craft, the gondolier is yet its master, free to come and free to go. The wide stretch of the sea is his—not another's: a sea hemmed about by the palaces of ancestors who for ten centuries dominated the globe.
* * * * * * *
But Luigi is still standing on the marble steps of the landing opposite the Caffè Veneta Marina this lovely September day, doffing his cap to the admiring throng, just as Colleoni would have doffed his, and with equal grace. Not the red cap of his guild—that has been laid aside for two centuries—but his wide straw hat, with his colors wound about it.
As he made his way slowly through the crowd toward the caffè, an old woman who had been waiting for him—wrinkled, gray-haired, a black shawl about her head held tight to the chin by her skinny fingers, her eyes peering from its folds—stepped in front of him. She lived near his home and was godmother to one of his children.
"Luigi Zanaletto!" she cried, catching him by the wrist.
"Yes, good mother."
"That idiot Marco told my Amalia last night that you will lose the race. He has been to the Pietà and will bet all his money on Francesco."
"And why not, good mother? Why do you worry?"
"Because the two fools will have no money to be married on. They are called in San Rosario next Sunday, and the next is their wedding-day. He has pawned the boat his uncle gave him."
"And if he wins?"
"He will not win, Luigi. When that brute came in from the little race we had last week I was passing in a sandolo on my way to San Giorgio. He was panting like a child after a run. If he had no breath left in him then, where will he be to-day?"
"One cannot tell, good mother. Who told the boy I would lose the race?"
"Beppo Cavalli."
"Ah! the Nicolletti," muttered Luigi.
"Yes."
"He has a boy, too, has he not, good mother?"
"Yes, Amalia loved him once; now she loves Marco. These girls are like the wind, Luigi. They never blow two days alike."
Luigi stopped and looked out toward the lagoon. He knew Cavalli. In summer he rowed a barca; in winter he kept a wine shop and solduntaxed salt and smuggled cigarettes to his customers. The crowd pressed closer, listening.
"Beppo Cavalli, good mother," he said, slowly, "means ill to the boy Marco and to your daughter. The Cavallis are not backing Francesco. They talk loud, but there is not a soldo for him among them. Cavalli would get that girl for his son; she is pretty and would bring customers to his shop. Where is Marco?"
"He is at the Caffè Beneto with Cavalli and Francesco. I have tired my tongue out talking to Marco, and so has Amalia. His head is fixed like a stone. Francesco is getting ready for this afternoon, but it will do him no good. He has not arms like this. Is it not so, men?"—and she lifted Luigi's arm and held it up that the crowd might see.
A great cheer went up in answer, and was echoed by the crowd about the caffè door. Luigi among the people of his quarter was like their religion.
The champion had now reached one of the tables of the caffè. Drawing out a chair, he bent forward, shook hands with old Guido, the proprietor, crooked his fingers gallantly at a group of womenin an overhanging balcony, and was just taking his seat when a young girl edged her way through the circle and slipped her arm around the woman's neck. She had the low brow surmounted by masses of jet-black hair, drooping, sleepy eyelids shading slumbering, passionate eyes, sensitive sweet mouth and oval face common to her class. About her shoulders was draped a black shawl, its fringes lost in the folds of her simple gown.
"Oh, Amalia!" cried the woman, "has this boy of yours given up his money yet?"
"No, mother, he has promised to wait till I come back. Marco is like a wild man when I talk. I thought Luigi would speak to him if I asked him. Please, dear Luigi, do not let him lose his money. We are ruined if he bets on Francesco."
Luigi reached out his hand and drew the girl toward him. His own daughter at home had just such a look in her eyes whenever she was in trouble and came to him for help.
"How much will he bet, child?" he asked in a low voice.
"Every soldo he has. Cavalli talks to him all thetime. They are like crazy people over there at the Beneto. Ah, good Luigi, do not win! I am so unhappy!" and the tears gathered in her eyes.
Luigi, still holding her hand, laughed gently as he looked up into her face. The others who had heard the girl's plea laughed with him.
"Go, child, and bring Marco here to me. Cavalli shall not ruin you both, if I can help it."
The girl pushed her hair back from her flushed face, drew her shawl closer about her shoulders, bent her pretty head, wormed her way out of the dense throng pressing in upon the table, and ran with all her might toward the Caffè Beneto, followed by her mother.
In a few minutes the two were back again, their arms fast locked in those of a young fellow of twenty—they marry young under Italian suns—who stood looking at Luigi with curious, wondering eyes. Not that he did not know the champion—every man in Venice knew him—but because Cavalli had pictured Luigi as of doubtful strength, and the Luigi before him did not fit Cavalli's measure.
"Marco," said Luigi, a smile crossing his face.
"Yes, Signore Zanaletto," answered the boy.
"Come nearer."
The young fellow advanced to the table. The others who had been near enough to learn of the girl's errand crowded the closer. Every utterance of a champion on a day like this is of value.
"You should be at work, boy, not betting on the race. You earn your living with your hands; that is better than Cavalli's way; he earns his with his tongue. I am nearly twice your age and have rowed many times, but I have never yet wagered as much as a soldo on any race of mine. Give your money to the good mother, and let her take it to the Pietà and get your boat. You will need it before the month is out, she tells me."
The boy hung his head and did not answer.
"Why do you think I shall lose? Have I not won four already?"
"Yes, but every year the signore gets older; you are not so strong as you were. And then, no man has won five races in fifty years. It is the Nicolletti's year to win, Cavalli says."
A cheer here went up from the outside of thecrowd. Some of the Nicolletti who had followed the boy had been listening.
"Cavalli should read his history better. It is not fifty years, but sixty. But we Italians work for ourselves now, and are free. That counts for something."
"Francesco works, Signore Zanaletto. He has arms like my leg."
"Yes, and for that reason you think him the stronger?"
"I did when Cavalli talked to me. Now I am in doubt."
The cheer that answered this reply came from some Castellani standing in the door of the caffè. When the cheering slackened a man on the outside of the crowd called out:
"Your Luigi is a coward. He will not bet because he knows he'll lose."
At this a big stevedore from the salt warehouse lunged toward Luigi and threw a silver lira on his table.
"Match that for Francesco!" he cried.
Luigi pushed it back.
"When I bet it will be with my equal," he said, icily.
A laugh of derision followed, in which Marco joined. The boy evidently thought the champion was afraid to risk his own money and make his word good. Boys of twenty often have such standards.
"Bet with Francesco, then, Signore Zanaletto," cried the stevedore. "He is twice your equal."
"Yes, bring him here," answered Luigi, quietly.
Half a dozen men, led by the big stevedore, made a rush for the Caffè Beneto. While they were gone, Marco, with Amalia and her mother, kept their places beside Luigi's table, chatting together in low tones. Luigi's refusal to bet with the stevedore and his willingness to bet with his opponent had unsettled Marco's mind all the more. Marriage, with him as with most of the people of his class, meant just money enough to pay the priest and to defray expenses of existence for a month. He would take his chances after that. They might both go to work again then, she back to her beads and he to his boat, but they would have had their holiday, anda holiday is the one thing valued above all others by most Venetians. Should he lose, however, he must give up the girl for the present—the prettiest in all the quarter. And then perhaps Beppo Cavalli's son might find favor again in her eyes.
Amalia's anxiety was none the less keen. She had thrown over Cavalli's son for Marco, and if anything should go wrong the whole quarter would laugh at her. The two continued to ply Luigi with questions: as to who would win the toss for position; whether the wind would be against them; whether the water would be rough where the tide cut around the point of San Giorgio—all of which Marco, being a good boatman, could have settled for himself had his mind been normal. As they talked on, Luigi read their minds. Reason and common sense had evidently made no impression on the boy; he was not to be influenced in that way. Something stronger and more obvious, some demonstration that he could understand, was needed. Amalia's mother was his friend, and had been for years; what he could do to help her he would, no matter at what cost.
The throng parted again, and the stevedore, out of breath, forced his way into the circle.
"The great Francesco says he comes at no man's call. He is a Nicolletti. If any Castellani wants to see him he must come tohim. He will wait for you at the Beneto."
A shout went up, and a rush to avenge the insult was only stopped by Luigi gaining his feet and raising his hand.
"Tell him," he said, in a clear voice, loud enough for everyone to hear, "that there is no need of his saying he is a Nicolletti; we would know it from his message. Come, boy, I'll show you of what stuff this gentleman is made."
The crowd fell back, Luigi striding along, his hand on Marco's shoulder. The champion could hardly conceal a smile of triumph as he neared the door of the Caffè Beneto, which opened to let them in. The two passed through the long passage into the room opening out on the veranda and the water beyond. Francesco sat at a table with his back to a window, sipping a glass of wine diluted with water. Cavalli, his head bound with a yellowhandkerchief, the colors of the Nicolletti, a scowl on his face, sat beside him. Every inch of standing room was blocked with his admirers.
"Signore Francesco," said Luigi, courteously, removing his hat, "I understand that you want to lose some money on the race. I have come to accommodate you. How much shall it be?"
"Ten lire!" cried one of the officers of the regatta, pouring some silver beside Francesco's hand as it rested on the table. "Put your money here, Signore Zanaletto. Our good landlord will hold the stakes."
"The money is not enough," answered Luigi. "I am the challenged party, and have the right to choose. Is it not so?"
"Yes, yes," cried half a dozen voices; "make it fifty lire! We are notlazagnoni. We have money—plenty of it. See, Signore Castellani"—and half a dozen palms covered with small coin were extended.
"I can choose, then, the kind of money and the sum," continued Luigi.
"Yes, gold, silver, paper—anything you want!"
"Then, gentle Nicolletti," said Luigi, in his softest and most courteous voice, "if you will permit me, I will choose the poor man's money. Match this, Signore Francesco," and he threw a copper soldo (a coin the size and thickness of an English penny) upon the table. "It is yours if you win."
A roar of laughter greeted the announcement. Francesco sprang to his feet.
"I am not here to be made a fool of! I don't bet with soldi! I throw them to beggars!" he cried, angrily.
"Pardon me, signore. Was it not agreed that I had the choice?"
Some muttering was heard at this, but no one answered.
"Let us see your soldo, then, signore," continued Luigi. "The race is the thing, not the money. A soldo is as good as a gold piece with which to back one's opinions. Come, I am waiting."
Francesco thrust his hand into his pocket, hauled up a handful of small coin, picked out a soldo and threw it contemptuously on the table.
"There—will that do?"
Luigi picked up the copper coin, examined it carefully, and tossed it back on the table.
"It is not of the right kind, signore. The stamp is wrong. We Castellani are very particular as to what money we wager and win."
The crowd craned their heads. If it was a counterfeit, they would put up another. This, however, did not seem to be Luigi's meaning. The boy Marco was so absorbed in the outcome that he reached forward to pick up the coin to examine it the closer when Luigi stopped him with his hand.
"What's the matter with the soldo?" growled Francesco, scrutinizing the pieces, "isn't it good?"
"Good enough, perhaps, for beggars, signore, and good enough, no doubt, for Nicolletti. But it lacks the stamp of the Castellani. Hand it to me, please, and I will put the mark of my guild upon it. Look, good Signore Francesco!"
As he spoke, Luigi caught the coin between his thumb and forefinger, clutched it with a grip of steel, and with a twist of his thumb bent the copper soldo to the shape of a watch crystal!
"That kind of a soldo, signore," he said in a low tone, as he tossed the concave coin back upon the table. "Match it, please! Here, try your fingers on my coin! Come, I am waiting. You do not answer, Signore Francesco. Why did you send for me, then? Had I known that your money was not ready I would not have left my caffè. Perhaps, however, some other distinguished Nicolletti can find some money good enough with which to bet a Castellani," and he looked about him. "No? I am sorry, gentlemen, very sorry. Addio!" and he picked up the bent coin, slipped it into his pocket, bowed like a doge to the room, and passed out through the door.
* * * * * * *
In the dense mass that lined the wall of the Public Gardens a girl and her lover stood with anxious eyes and flushed, hot cheeks, watching the home-stretch of the two contestants.
Francesco and Luigi, cheered by the shouts of a thousand throats, had reached the stake-boat off the Lido and were now swinging back to the goal of the Garden wall, both bending to their blades,Luigi half a length behind, Francesco straining every nerve. Waves of red and of gold—the colors of the two guilds—surged and flashed from out the mass of spectators as each oarsman would gain or lose an inch.
Behind the lover and the girl stood the girl's mother, her black shawl twisted into a scarf. This she waved as heartily as the youngest about her.
"Don't cry, you fools!" she stopped long enough to shout in Amalia's ear. "It is his old way. Wait till he reaches the red buoy. Ah! what did I tell you! Luigi! Luigi! Bravo Castellani! See, Marco—see! Ah, Signore Francesco, your wind is gone, is it? You should nurse bambinos with those big arms of yours. Ah, look at him! Amalia, what did I tell you, you two fools!"
Marco did not answer. He was holding on to the marble coping of the wall, his teeth set, his lips quivering, his eyes fixed on Francesco's body in silhouette against the glistening sea. Luigi's long swing, rhythmical as a machine's, graceful as the curves of a wind sail, did not seem to interest him.The boy had made his bet, and he would abide by it, but he would not tell the mother until the race was won. He had had enough of her tongue.
Suddenly Luigi clenched his thumb and forefinger tight about the handle of his oar, and with the sweep of a yacht gaining her goal headed straight for the stake-post, in full sight of the thousands lining the walls.
A great shout went up. Red flags, red parasols, rags, blankets, anything that told of Luigi's colors, rose and fluttered in the sunlight.
"Primo! Primo!" yelled the crowd. "Viva Castellani! Viva Zanaletto!"
Then, while the whole concourse of people held their breaths, their hearts in their mouths, Luigi with his fingers turned to steel, shot past Francesco with the dash of a gull, and amid the shouts of thousands lifted his victorious hat to the multitude.
For the first time in sixty years the same pair of arms had won five races!
Luigi wasPrimoand the Castellani the victors of the sea.
* * * * * * *
When Luigi's boat had reached the main landing of the Gardens and he had mounted the great flight of marble steps, a hundred hands held out to him joyous welcome. Amalia, who had forced her way to his side, threw her arms about his neck.
"Did the boy bet, child?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his face.
"Yes, signore."
"On Francesco?"
"No, dear Luigi, on you! Oh, I am so happy!"
"And what changed his mind?"
"The soldo!"
"The soldo! That makes me happy, too. Add it to your dowry, child," and he placed the coin in her hand.
She wears it now as a charm. The good priest blessed it with her wedding-ring.
A POINT OF HONOR
The omnibus stopped in the garden, or, to be more exact, at the porch of the hotel opening into the garden. Not the ordinary omnibus with a flapping door fastened with a strap leading to the boot-leg of the man on top, a post-office box inside with a glass front, holding a smoky kerosene lamp, and two long pew-cushioned seats placed so close together that everybody rubs everybody else's knees when it is full; not that kind of an omnibus at all, but a wide, low, yellow-painted (yellow as a canary), morocco-cushioned, go-to-the-theatre-in kind of an omnibus drawn by a pair of stout Normandy horses, with two men in livery on the box in front and another on the lower step behind who helps you in and out and takes your bundles and does any number of delightful and courteous things.
This yellow-painted chariot, moreover, was just the kind of a vehicle that should have moved in and out of this flower-decked garden. Not only did its color harmonize with the surroundings—quite as a mass of yellow nasturtiums harmonizes with the peculiar soft green of its leaves—but its appointments were quite in keeping with the luxury and distinction of the place. For only millionaires and princes, and people who travel with valets and maids, and now and then a staid old painter like myself who is willing to be tucked away anywhere, but whose calling is supposed to lend éclat to the register, are ever to be found there.
The omnibus, then, stopped at the hotel porch and in front of the manager, who stood with a bunch of telegrams in his hand. Behind him smiled the clerk, and on his right bowed the Lord High Porter in gold lace and buttons: everything is done in the best and most approved style at the Baur au Lac in Zurich.
"Did you telegraph, sir? No? Well—let—me-see— Ah, yes! I remember—you were here last year. Number 13, Fritz, on the second floor" (thisto a boy), and the manager passed on and saluted the other passengers—two duchesses in silk dusters, a count in a straw hat with a green ribbon, and two Italian nobleman in low collars and mustaches. At least, they must have been noblemen or something better, judging from the profundity of the manager's bow and the alacrity with which Fritz, the boy, let go my bag and picked up three of theirs.
Another personage now stepped up—a little man with the eyes of a fox—a courier whom I had not seen for years.
"Why, Joseph! where did you drop from?" I asked.
"From the Engadine, my Lord, and I hope your Lordship is most well."
"Pretty well, Joseph. What are you doing here?"
"It is an Englishman—a lame Englishman—a matter of two weeks only. And you, my Lord?"
"Just from Venice, on my way back to Paris," I answered.
By this time the manager was gazing with his eyes twice their size, and the small boy wasstanding in the middle of a heap of bags, wondering which one of the nobilities (including myself) he would serve first.
Joseph had now divested me of my umbrella and sketch-trap and was facing the manager.
"Did I hear that thirteen was the number of his Lordship's room?" he inquired of that gentleman. "I will myself go. Give me the bag" (this to the boy). "This way, my Lord." And he led the way through the cool hall filled with flowering plants and up a staircase panelled with mirrors. I followed contentedly behind.
Joseph and I are old acquaintances. In my journeyings around Europe I frequently run across him. He and I have had some varied experiences together in our time—the first in Milan at the Hotel Imperial. A young bride and groom, friends of mine—a blue-eyed, sweet-faced young girl with a husband but one year her senior (the two with a £2,000 letter of credit, the gift of a doting father)—had wired for rooms for the night at the Imperial. It was about eight o'clock when the couple drove up in one of those Italian hacks cut low-neck—a landau really—with coachman and footman on the box, and Joseph in green gloves and a silk hat on the front seat. My personal salutations over, we all mounted the stairs, preceded by the entire staff with the proprietor at their head. Here on the first landing we were met by two flunkeys in red and a blaze of electric light which revealed five rooms. In one was spread a game supper with every variety of salad known to an Italian lunch-counter; in another—the salon—stood a mass of roses the size and shape of an oleander in full bloom; then came a huge bedroom, a bathroom and a boudoir.
The groom, young as he was, knew how little was left of the letter of credit. The bride did not. Neither did Joseph.
"What's all this for, Hornblend?" asked the groom, casting his eyes about in astonishment. Hornblend is the other half of Joseph's name.
"For Monsieur and Madame."
"What, forone night?"
Joseph worked both shoulders and extended his red fingers—he had removed his gloves—till they looked like two bunches of carrots.
"Does it not Monsieur please?"
"Please! Do you think I'm a royal family?"
The carrots collapsed, the shoulders stopped, and a pained expression overspread Joseph's countenance. The criticisms had touched his heart.
The groom and I put our heads together—mine is gray, and I have seen many couriers in my time. His was blond and curly, and Joseph was his first experience.
I beckoned to the proprietor.
"Who ordered this suite of rooms and all this tomfoolery?"
The man bowed and waved his hand loftily toward the groom.
"How?"
"By telegraph."
"Let me see the despatch."
One of the functionaries—the clerk—handed me the document.
"Is this the only one?"
"Yes."
"It is signed 'Joseph Hornblend,' you see."
"Yes."
"Then let Hornblend pay for it. Now be good enough to show these young people to a bedroom, and send your head-waiter to me. We will all dine downstairs together in the café."
Since that night in Milan Joseph always has called me "my Lord."
He had altered but little. His legs were perhaps more bowed, the checks of his trousers a trifle larger, and the part in his iron-gray hair less regular than in the old days, but the general effect was the same—the same flashy waistcoat, the same long gold watch-chain baited with charms, the same shiny, bell-crown silk hat, and the same shade of green kid gloves—same pair, I think. Nor had his manner changed—that cringing, deferential, attentive manner which is so flattering at first to the unsuspecting and inexperienced, and so positive and top-lofty when his final accounts are submitted—particularly if they are disputed. The voice, too, had lost none of its soft, purring quality—a church-whisper-voice with the drone of the organ in it.
And yet withal Joseph is not a bad fellow. Oncehe knows the size of your pocket-book he willingly adapts his expenditures to its contents. Ofttimes, it is true, there is nothing left but the pocket-book, but then some couriers would take that. When he is in doubt as to the amount, he tries experiments. I have learned since that the lay-out for the bride and groom that night in Milan was only one of his experiments—the proprietor being co-conspirator. The coach belonged to the hotel; the game supper was moved up from the restaurant, and the flowers had been left over from a dinner the night before. Had they all done duty, Joseph's commissions would have been that much larger. As it was, he collected his percentage only on the coach and the two men on the box and the flunkeys at the head of the stairs. These had beenused. The other preparations were only looked at.
Then again, Joseph not only speaks seven languages, but he speaks them well—for Joseph—so much so that a stranger is never sure of his nationality.
"Are you French, Joseph?" I once asked him.
"No."
"Dutch?"
"No."
"What, then?"
"I am a Jew gentleman from Germany."
He lied, of course. He's a Levantine from Constantinople, with Greek, Armenian, Hindu, and perhaps some Turkish blood in his veins. This combination insures him good temper, capacity, and imagination—not a bad mixture for a courier. Besides, he is reasonably honest—not punctiliously so—not as to francs, perhaps, but certainly as to fifty-pound notes—that is, he was while he served me. Of course, I never had a fifty-pound note—not all at once—but if I had had I don't think he would have absorbed it—not if I had signed it on the back for identification and had kept it in a money-belt around my waist and close to my skin.
Those things, however, never trouble me. I don't want to make a savings-bank of Joseph. It is his vivid imagination that appeals to me, or perhaps the picturesqueness with which he puts things. In this he is a veritable master. His material, too, isnot only uncommonly rich, but practically inexhaustible. He knows everybody; has travelled with everybody; has always kept one ear and one eye open even when asleep, and has thus picked up an immense amount of information regarding people and events—mostly his own patrons—the telling of which has served to enliven many a quiet hour while he sat beside me as I painted. Why, once I remember in Stamboul, when some Arabs had——
But I forget that I am following Joseph upstairs, and that his mission is to see that I am comfortably lodged at the Baur au Lac in Zurich.
When we reached the second floor Joseph met the porter emerging into the corridor with my large luggage. He had mounted the back stairs.
"Let me see Number 13, porter," cried Joseph. "Ah, yes—it is just as I supposed. Is it in that hole you would put my Lord—where there is noise all the time? You see that window, my Lord?" (By this time I had reached the two disputants and had entered the room.) "You remember, your Highness, that enormous omnibus in which you have arrived just? It is there that it sleeps." And Joseph cranedhis head out of the window and pointed in the direction of the court-yard. "When it goes out in the morning at seven o'clock for the train it is like thunder. The Count Monflot had this room. You should have seen him when he was awoke at seven. He was like a crazy man. He pulled all the strings out of the bells, and when the waiter come he had the hat-box of Monsieur the Count at his head."
Dismissing the apartment with a contemptuous wave of his hand, Joseph, with the porter's assistance, who had a pass-key, began a search of the other vacant rooms: half the hotel was vacant, I afterward learned; all this telegram and book business was merely an attempt to bolster up the declining days of a bad season.
"Number 21? No—it is a little better, but it's too near the behind stairs. It would be absurd to put his Lordship there. Number 24?"—here he looked into another room. "No, you can hear the grande baggage in the night going up and down. No, it will not do."
The manager, having disposed of the othermembers of the Emperor's household, now approached with a servile smile fitted to all parts of his face. Joseph attacked him at once.
"Is his Lordship a valet, Monsieur, that you should put him in such holes? Do you not know that he never wakes until ten, and has his coffee at eleven, and the omnibus, you know, sleeps there?" And he pointed outside. (Another Levantine lie: I am up at seven when the light is right.)
Here the porter unlocked another room and stood by smiling. He knew the game was up now, and had reserved this one for the last.
"Number—28! Ah, this is something like. Yes, my Lord, this will be quite right. La Contessa Moriarti had this room—yes, I remember." (Joseph never serves any woman below the rank of contessa.)
So I moved into Number 28, handed Joseph the keys, and the porter deposited my luggage and withdrew, followed by the manager. Soon the large and small trunks were disembowelled, my sponge hung on a nail in the window, and the several toilet articles distributed in their proper places, Josephserving in the triple capacity of courier, valet, and chambermaid—the lame Englishman being out driving, and Joseph, therefore, having this hour to himself. This distribution, of course, was made in deference to my exalted rank and the ten-franc gold piece which he never fails to get despite my resolutions, and which he always seems to have earned despite my knowledge as to how the trick is performed.
Suddenly a crash sounded through the hall as if somebody had dropped a tray of dishes. Then came another, and another. Either every waiter in the house was dropping trays, or an attack was being made on the pantry by a mob.
Joseph, with a bound, threw back the door and we rushed out.
Just opposite my room was a small salon with the door wide open. In its centre stood a man with an iron poker in his hand. He was busy smashing what was left of a large mirror, its pieces littering the floor. On the sofa lay another man twice the size of the first one, who was roaring with laughter. Down the corridor swooped a collection of guests, porters,and chambermaids in full cry, the manager at their head.
"Two hundred and fifty francs, eh—for a looking-glass worth twenty francs?" I heard the man with the poker shout. "I blister with my gas-jet one little corner, and I must pay two hundred and fifty francs. I have ruined the mirror, have I, eh? And it must be thrown out and a new one put in to-morrow—eh?" Bang! bang! Here the poker came down on some small fragment still clinging to the frame. "Yes, itwillcome out [bang!]—allof it will come out."
The manager was now trying to make himself heard. Such words as "my mirror," "outrage," "Gendarme," could be heard above the sound of the breaking glass and the shrieks of the man on the sofa, who seemed to be in a paroxysm of laughter.
I looked on for a moment. Some infuriated lodger, angry, perhaps, at the overcharge in his bill, was venting his wrath on the furniture. It was not my mirror, and it was not my bill; the manager was present with staff enough to throw both mendownstairs if he pleased and without my assistance, and so I turned and reentered my room. Two things fixed themselves in my mind: the alert figure, trim as a fencer's, of the man with the poker, and the laugh of the fat man sprawling on the lounge.
Joseph followed me into my room and shut the door softly behind him.
"Ah, I knew it was he. No other man is so crazy like that. He would break the head of the propriétaire just the same. That is an old swindle. That mirror has been cracked four—five—six times. The gas-jet is fixed so that youmustcrack it. All the mirrors like the one he burnt—it was only a little spot—go upstairs in the cheap rooms and new ones are brought in for such games. 'Most always they pay, but monsieur—it is not like him to pay. He has heard of the trick, perhaps—is it not delicious?" and Joseph's face widened into a grin.
"You know him, then?" I broke in.
"Know him?—oh, for many years. He is the great Doctor Barsac. He smashes everything hedoesn't like. He smashed that old fat monsieur who made so much laugh. His name is Mariguy. He looks like a curé, does he not? But he is not a curé; he is an advocate. Barsac is from Basle, but Mariguy lives in Paris. Those two are never separated; they love each other like a man and a wife. There is a great medical convention here in Zurich, and Barsac has brought Mariguy with him to show him off. He put a new silver stomach in Mariguy last winter and is very proud of it. It is the great operation of the year, they say."
"What happened to the fat man, Joseph—was it an accident?"
"No—a duel. Barsac ran him through the belly with his sword."
"Permit me, my Lord—" And Joseph stepped to the window. "Yes, there comes the lame Englishman home from the drive. Excuse me—I will go and help him from his carriage." And Joseph bowed himself out backward.
* * * * * * *
Joseph's departure left my mind in an unsettled state. I hadn't the slightest interest in the great surgeon who had made the cure of the year, nor in the stout advocate with his nickel-plated digestive apparatus. Both of them might have broken every mirror in the hotel and have thrown the fragments out of the window, and the manager after them, without raising my pulse a beat. Neither did the medical convention nor the doctor's exhibit cause me a moment's thought. Such things were commonplace and of every-day occurrence. Only the dramatic in life appeals to so staid and gray an old painter as myself, and even Joseph's picturesque imagination could not imbue either one of the incidents of the morning with that desirable quality.
What really did appeal to me as I conjured up in my mind the picture of the fat man sprawled over the sofa-cushions roaring with laughter wasthe duel and the causes that led up to it. Why, if the man was his friend, had the doctor selected the hilarious advocate as an antagonist, and what could have induced the surgeon to pick out that particular section of his friend's surface in which to insert his sword.
That same night, in the smoking-room of the hotel, Joseph caught sight of me as he passed the open door and moved forward to my table. He had changed his dress of the morning, discarding the inflammatory waistcoat, and was now upholstered in a full suit of black. He explained that there were some friends of his living in the village who were going to have some music. The Englishman was in bed and asleep, and now that he was sure that I was comfortable, he could give himself some little freedom, with his mind at rest.
I motioned him to a seat.
He laid his silk hat and one glove on an adjoining table, spread his coat-tails, and deposited himself on the extreme edge of a chair—a position which would enable him to regain his feet at a moment's notice should any of my friends chance tojoin me. It is just such delicate recognition of my rank and lordly belongings that makes Joseph's companionship ofttimes a pleasure.
"You tell me, Joseph, that that crazy doctor stabbed the fat man in a duel."
"Notstabbed, my Lord! That is not the nice word. It was done so—so—so." And Joseph's wrist, holding an imaginary sword, performed the grand thrust in the air. "He is a master with the rapier. When he was at the Sorbonne he had five duels and never once a scratch. His honor was most paramount. He would fight with anybody, and for the smallest thing—if one man had a longer cane, or wore a higher hat, or took cognac in his coffee. Not for the grisette or for the cards in the face; not so big a thing as that; quite a small thing that nobody would remember a moment. And with his friends always—never with the man he did not before know."
"And was the fat man his friend?"
"His friend! Mon Dieu! they were like the brothers. One—two—five year, I think—all the whole time of the instruction. I was not there, ofcourse, but a friend of mine tell me—a most truthful man, my friend."
"What was the row about? Cognac in his coffee?"
"I do not know—perhaps somethings. Yes, I do remember now. It was the cutting of the hair. Barsac like it short and Mariguy like it long. Barsac tried to cut the hair from Mariguy's head when he was asleep, and then it began. It was in that little wood at the bridge at Surèsne that they went to fight. You know you turn to the right and there is a little place—all small trees—there it was.
"When they all got ready, there quickly arrive a carriage all dust, and the horse in a sweat, and out jumps an old lady—it was Mariguy's mother. Somebody had told her—not Mariguy, of course, but some student. 'Stop!' she cried; 'you do not my son kill. You, Barsac, you do nothing but fight!' Then they all talk, and Mariguy say to Barsac, 'It cannot be; my mother, as you see, is old. There is no one but me. If I am wounded, she will be in the bed with fright. If I am killed, she will be dead. It is my mother, you see, that you fight, not me.'
"Barsac take off his hat and bow to madame." (Joseph had now reached for his own and was illustrating the incident with an appropriate gesture.) "'Madame Mariguy,' said Barsac, 'I make ten thousand pardons. I respect the devotion of the mother,' and he went back to Paris, and Mariguy got into the carriage and go away with the mother."
"But, Joseph, of course that was not the last of it?"
"Yes, my Lord, until one year ago."
"Why, did they have another quarrel, Joseph?"
"No, not another—never but that one. They were for a long time what you call friends of the bosom. Every day after that they see each other, and every night they dine at the Louis d'Or below the Luxembourg. Then pretty soon the doctor, he have to take his degree and come back to Basle to live, and Monsieur Mariguy also have take his degree and become a great advocate in Paris. Every week come a letter from Barsac to Mariguy, and one from Mariguy to Barsac."
Joseph stopped in his narrative at this point,noticing perhaps some shade of incredulity across my countenance, and said parenthetically: "I am quite surprised, my Lord, that you have not this heard before. It was quite the talk of Paris at the time. No? Well, then, I will tell you everything as it did happen, for I do assure you that it is most exciting.
"All this time—it was quite ten years, perhaps fifteen—not one word does Monsieur Barsac say to Monsieur Mariguy about the insult of the long hair. All the time, too, they are together. For the summer they go to a little village in the Swiss mountains, and for the winter they go to Nice, and 'most every night they play a little at the tables. It was there I met them.
"One morning at Basle the doctor was at his table eating the breakfast when the newspaper is put on the side. He read a little and sip his coffee, and then he read a little more—all this, my Lord, was in the papers at the time—I am quite astonished that you have not seen it—and then the doctor make a loud cry, and throw the paper down, runupstairs, pack his bag, jump into a fiacre and go like mad to the station. The next morning he is in Paris, and at the house of his friend Mariguy. In three days they are at Surèsne again—not in the little wood, but in the garden of Monsieur Rochefort, who was his second. It was against the law to go into the little wood to fight, so they took the nearest place to their old meeting—a small sentiment, you see, my Lord, which Monsieur the Doctor always enjoys.
"They toss up for the sun, and Monsieur Barsac he gets the shade. At the first pass, no one is hurt. At the second, Monsieur Barsac has a little scratch on his wrist, but no blood. The seconds make inspection most careful. They regret that the encounter must go on, but the honor is not yet satisfied. At the third, Monsieur Mariguy made a misstep, and Monsieur Barsac's sword go into Monsieur Mariguy's shirt and come out at Monsieur Mariguy's back.
"You can imagine what then take place. Doctor Barsac cry in a loud voice that his honor is satisfied,and the next moment he is on his knees beside his friend. Monsieur Mariguy is at once put in the bed, and for one—two—three months he is dead one day and breathe a little the next. Barsac never leave the house of his friend Monsieur Rochefort one moment—not one day does he go back to Basle. Every night he is by the bed of Monsieur Mariguy. Then comes the critical moment. Monsieur Mariguy must have a new stomach; the old one is like a stocking with a hole in the toe. Then comes the great triumph of Monsieur le Docteur. All Paris come out to see. To make a stomach of silver is to make one the fool, they say. The old doctors shake their heads, but Barsac he only laugh. In one more month Monsieur Mariguy is on his feet, and every day walks a little in the Bois near the house of Monsieur Rochefort. In one more month he run, and eat himself full like a boy.
"He is now no longer the great advocate. He is theexampleof Monsieur Barsac. That is why he is here at the medical convention. They arrived only yesterday and leave to-night. If you turn a little, my Lord, you can see into the other room. Therethey sit smoking.—Ah! do you hear? That is Monsieur Mariguy's laugh. Oh, they enjoy themselves! They have drank two bottles of Johannisberger already—twenty-five francs each, if you please, my Lord. The head waiter showed me the bottles. But what does Barsac care? He cut everything out of the insides of the Prince Morin one day last month, and had for a fee fifty thousand francs and the order of St. John."
I bent my head in the direction of Joseph's index finger and easily recognized the two men at the table. The smaller man, Barsac, was even more trim and alert-looking than when I caught a glimpse of him in the bedroom. As he sat and talked to Mariguy he looked more like an officer in the French army than a doctor. His hair was short, his mustache pointed, and his beard closely trimmed. He had two square shoulders and a slim waist, and talked with his hands as if they were part of his mental equipment. The other man, Mariguy, the "example," was just a fat, jolly, good-natured Frenchman, who to all appearance loved a bottle of wine better than he did a brief.
Joseph was about to begin again when I stopped him with this inquiry:
"There is one thing in your story, Joseph, that I don't quite get: you say they were students together?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"That the first duel—the one that the mother stopped—was fifteen years ago?"
"Quite true, my Lord."
"And that this last duel was fought a year ago, and that all that time they were together whenever they could be, and devoted friends?"
"Every word true, my Lord."
"Well, then, why didn't they fight before?"
Joseph looked at me with a curious expression on his face—one rather of disappointment, as if I had utterly failed to grasp his meaning.
"Fight before! It would have been impossible, my Lord. Barsac's honor was at the stake."
"And he must wait fifteen years," I asked with some impatience, "to vindicate it?"
"Certainly, my Lord—or twice that time if it was necessary. It was only when he read in thepaper at the table of his breakfast that morning in Basle that he knew."
"What difference did that make?"
"Every difference, my Lord; Madame Mariguy, the mother, was only the day before dead."
SIMPLE FOLK