Zut, and Other Parisians. Carryl Guy Wetmore

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СКАЧАТЬ street was dimly lighted, but, just behind him, the windows of a tiny wine-shop gave out a subdued glow, and from within came the sound of a violin. Then Cazeby's attention came around to the owner of the voice. This was a youngish man of medium stature, in the familiar street dress of a French laborer, jacket and waistcoat of dull blue velveteen, peg-top trousers of heavy corduroy, a crimson knot at his throat, and a dark tam o'shanter pulled low over one ear. As their eyes met, he apparently saw that Cazeby had not heard his first remark, and so repeated it.

      "I have need of a drink!"

      There was nothing of the beggar in his tone or manner. Both were threatening, rather; and, as soon as he had spoken, he thrust his lower jaw forward, in the fashion common to the thug of any and every nationality when the next move is like to be a blow. But, for once, these manifestations of hostility failed signally of effect. Cazeby was the last person in the world to select as the object of sudden attack, with the idea that panic would make him easy prey. In his present state of mind he went further than preserving his equanimity: he was even faintly amused. It was not that he did not comprehend the other's purpose, but, to his way of thinking, there was something distinctly humorous in the idea of holding up a man with only sixty centimes to his name, and menacing him with injury, when he himself was on his way to the upper right hand drawer of the marqueterie desk.

      "I have need of a drink," repeated the other, coming a step nearer. "Thou art not deaf, at least?"

      "No," said Cazeby, pleasantly, "no, I am not deaf, and I, too, have need of a drink. Shall we take it together?" And, without waiting for a reply, he turned and stepped through the doorway of the little wineshop. The Frenchman hesitated, shrugged his shoulders with an air of complete bewilderment, and, after an instant also entered the shop and placed himself at the small table where Cazeby was already seated.

      "A vitriol for me," he said.

      Cazeby had not passed three years in Paris for nothing. He received this remarkable request with the unconcern of one to whom the slang of the exterior boulevards is sufficiently familiar, and, as the proprietor leaned across the nickled slab of his narrow counter with an air of interrogation, duplicated his companion's order.

      "Deux vitriols!"

      The proprietor, vouchsafing the phrase a grin of appreciation, lumbered heavily around to the table, filled two small glasses from a bottle of cheap cognac, and stood awaiting payment, hands on hips.

      "Di-ze sous," he said.

      There was no need to search for the exact amount. Cazeby spun his fifty-centime piece upon the marble, added his remaining two sous by way of pourboire, and disposed of the brandy at a gulp.

      "Have you also need of a cigarette?" he inquired, politely, tendering the other his case.

      For some minutes, as they smoked, the diplomat and the vagabond took stock of each other in silence. In many ways they were singularly alike. There was in both the same irony of lip line, the same fair chiseling of chin and nostril and brow, the same weariness of eye. The difference was one of dress and bearing alone, and, in those first moments of mutual analysis, Cazeby realized that there was about this street-lounger a vague air of the gentleman, a subtle suggestion of good birth and breeding, which even his slouching manner and coarse speech were not wholly able to conceal: and his guest was conscious that in Cazeby he had to deal with no mere society puppet, but with one in whom the limitations of position had never wholly subdued the devil-may-care instincts of the vagabond. The one was a finished model of a man of the world, the other a caricature, but the clay was the same.

      "I am also hungry," said the latter suddenly.

      "In that respect," responded Cazeby, in the same tone of even politeness, "I am, unfortunately, unable to assist you, unless you will accept the hospitality of my apartment. It is but a step, and I am rather an expert on bacon and eggs. Also," he added, falling into the idiom of the faubourgs, "there is a means there of remedying the dryness of the sponge in one's throat. My name is Antoine."

      "I am Bibi-la-Raie," said the other shortly. Then he continued, with instinctive suspicion, "It is a strange fashion thou hast of introducing a type to these gentlemen."

      "As a matter of fact," said Cazeby, "I do not live over a poste. But whether or not you will come is something for you to decide. It is less trouble to cook eggs for one than for two."

      Bibi-la-Raie reflected briefly. Finally he had recourse to his characteristic shrug.

      "After all, what difference?" he said. "As well now as another time. I follow thee!"

      The strangely assorted companions entered Cazeby's apartment as the clock was striking one, and pressure of an electric button, flooding the salon with light, revealed a little tea-table furnished with cigarettes and cigars, decanters of Scotch whiskey and liqueurs, and Venetian goblets of oddly tinted glass. Cazeby shot a swift glance at his guest as this array sprang into view, and was curiously content to observe that he manifested no surprise. Bibi-la-Raie had flung himself into a great leather chair with an air of being entirely at ease.

      "Not bad, thy little box," he observed. "Is it permitted?"

      He indicated the table with a nod.

      "Assuredly," said Cazeby. "Do as if you were at home. I shall be but a moment with the supper."

      When he returned from the kitchen, bearing a smoking dish of bacon and eggs, butter, rye bread, and Swiss cheese, Bibi-la-Raie was standing in rapt contemplation before an etching of the "Last Judgment."

      "What a genius, this animal of a Michel Ange!" he said.

      "Rather deft at times," replied Cazeby, arranging the dishes on the larger table.

      "Je te crois!" said Bibi, enthusiastically. "Without him – what? Evidently, it was not Léon Treize who built Saint Pierre!"

      The eggs had been peculiarly obstinate, as it happened, and a growing irritability had taken possession of Anthony. As they ate in silence, the full force of his tragic position returned to him. Even the unwontedness of his chance encounter with Bibi-la-Raie had not wholly dispelled the cloud that had been gradually settling around him since he emerged from the Automobile Club, and, as they finished the little repast, he turned suddenly upon his guest, in a burst of irritation.

      "Who are you?" he said. "And what does all this mean? Was I mistaken, when you first spoke to me, in thinking you a mere voyou? Surely not! You meant to rob me. You speak the argot of the fortifications. Yet here I find you discoursing on Michel Angelo as though you were the conservateur of the Uffizzi! What am I to think?"

      Bibi-la-Raie lit another cigarette, blew forth the smoke in a thin, gray wisp, and thrust his thumbs into the arm-holes of his velveteen waistcoat.

      "And you," he said, slowly, abandoning the familiar address he had been using, "who are you? No, you were not mistaken in thinking I meant to rob you. Such is my profession. But does a gentleman reply, in ordinary, to the summons of a thief by paying that thief a drink? Does he invite him to his apartment and cook a supper for him? What am I to think?"

      There was a brief pause, and then he faced his host squarely.

      "Are you absolutely resolved to put an end to it all to-night?" he demanded.

      Cazeby made a small sign of bewilderment.

      "Ah, mon vieux," continued the other. "That, you know, is of no use with me. You ask me who I am. For one thing, I am one who has lived too long in touch with desperate men not to know the look in the eyes when the end has come. You think you are going to blow out СКАЧАТЬ