Despair's Last Journey Part 22

'I've nothing to make a clean breast of,' Paul answered sullenly.

'Oh yes, you have,' said Herr Pauer. 'You were very tipsy on Sat.u.r.day night. Were you ever tipsy before?'

'No,'said Paul.

'You had money,' said Herr Pauer. 'Was it your own?'

'Yes.'

The answer was defiant and angry.

'To do as you liked with? Didn't you owe any of it?

'I owed something.'

'Got tipsy. Got cleared out. Hadn't the pluck to go home. That about the size of it?'

'Yes,' said Paul, 'that's about the size of it.'

'No hat,' Herr Pauer went on comfortably. 'Out all night. Sunday morning. Empty pockets. Religious landlady.'

'How do you know?' Paul asked.

'You told me about the landlady. The rest is easy enough. What are you going to do?'

'I don't know. I haven't thought about it.'

'You are a shiftless young devil, I must say. Doesn't it occur to you to think you _are_ a shiftless young devil--eh?'

'I think it does,' said Paul with extreme inward bitterness, 'now that you come to mention it.'

'Come now,' said Herr Pauer, shifting his seat on the table and turning to face the lad, 'you shall not take that tone. I tell you you shall not take it, because it is a wrong and dangerous tone. You have done things that you are ashamed of. You shall have the goodness to be ashamed of them like a man, and not like a fool. Now, what are you going to do?'

'I can earn a living,' Paul answered. 'I've got a trade between my fingers.'

'What is it?'

'I'm a compositor. I can do a man's work, if I can only earn two-thirds of a man's wages.'

'That is all very well. But it's not quite what I mean. You have a home?'

Paul laid his face in his hands and groaned. He was so ashamed at this that he had no courage to undo his own act. He sat with his face still hidden.

'You will go straight home to-morrow,' said Herr Pauer, rising from the table. The culprit shook his head. 'Tomorrow,' Herr Pauer reiterated.

The culprit shook his head again. 'They will kill the fatted calf,' said Herr Pauer.

'Oh, no, they won't,' said Paul

His father might be moved to do it, but not the rest. Oh, no, not the rest. And on the whole he would rather not have the fatted calf. He would prefer any desolation to forgiveness. Forgiveness must be preceded by knowledge, and the thought of that was unendurable.

'Do you reckon,' asked Herr Pauer, 'that you are ever going to see your folks again?'

Paul said nothing, and the circus proprietor moved back to his seat on the table. The circus band played close by, and at times the people cheered But in the little canvas box of a room there was silence for a long while Before it was broken the fat man came with a message.

'Poor Gill's no use to-night, governor; his ankle's worse than ever.'

'All right,' said Herr Pauer. 'I'll take an extra turn. Tell me when I'm wanted.'

'Saltanelli's off in a minute'

'I'll follow.'

The fat man withdrew, and Herr Pauer, having carefully balanced the stump of his cigar on the edge of the table, went after him. Paul waited for half a minute, and then stole out The fat man faced him.

'Where are you going to?'

'What business is that of yours?' Paul asked

'Governor's orders was you was to stop till he came back again.'

'Suppose I refuse to stop?'

'You can make a row if you like,' the fat man said wheezingly; 'but the governor's orders is the governor's orders. The governor says, "Keep that young chap till I come back again." There's plenty here to do it.'

'Very well,' said Paul, noticing half-a-dozen loungers in the canvas pa.s.sage.

He went back and took his former place The savage appet.i.te he had felt half an hour earlier had gone, and the empty nausea was back again. He had not heart enough left to care for anything. When the owner of the tent returned he brought a black bottle in his hand, and one of the liveried men came in behind him with a jug and gla.s.ses.

'I take one between turns,' said Herr Pauer--'never more One is a pick-me-up. Anything more than one is wrong.' He poured a stiff dose of rum into either gla.s.s, and looking towards Paul, water-jug in hand, said, 'Say when.'

'None for me,' Paul answered. 'I never touched the cursed stuff till Sat.u.r.day. I'll never touch it again.'

'Nonsense!' his companion answered, filling up the gla.s.s and pushing it towards him. 'Your teeth are chattering. Do you think because you have been a fool in one way that you have a right to be a fool in another?'

Paul sipped and shuddered, but in a second or two--no more--a faint sense of returning warmth stole through him. He sipped again, and the faint glow grew stronger. He took a pull which half emptied the tumbler, and the spirit made him cough and brought the tears to his eyes; but he felt his numbed limbs again. Pauer had relit the stump of his cigar and taken his old place on the table.

'It's not any part of my usual life-business,'he said, 'to do what I am doing now, but I like odd things, and it is an odd thing that I should meet you here. Besides that, I have been a fool in my time, and a fellow-feeling makes us kind. I shall put you up to-night, because you're a decent young chap, and a greenhorn. You shall have your clothes dried and brushed, and you shall be made decent to look at; and you shall get a hat, and in the morning you shall go home.'

'You're very kind,' said Paul, 'but I'm not going to take your help on false pretences. I shan't go home.'

'I will chance that,' said Herr Pauer. 'Finish your drink and put that coat on. You're shivering again.'

Paul obeyed sleepily. Herr Pauer drew a penknife from his pocket and impaled the last inch of his cigar with it. He sat puffing there, and sat looking at his guest, or prisoner, and Paul looked at him drowsily in turn until Herr Pauer's head seemed to swell and fill the canvas box. The noise of the band came in gushes, as if his ears were now under water and now clear of it The head went on swelling, and the sound of the music grew fainter. He was deliciously warm, and he had a feeling of being lifted and gently balanced to and fro as if he were in a hammock.

After this he forgot everything until he felt Pauer's hand on his shoulder, and started broad awake, with a clear sense that the s.p.a.ces close at hand which had been so crammed with life a little while ago were all dark and deserted.

'Time to go,' said Pauer. 'No, never mind the coat.'

Paul was struggling out of it. 'I have another.' He held his arms abroad to show that he was already provided, and the lad rose to his feet 'Take this,' said Pauer, fixing a rough unlined cap upon his head with both hands. 'It will look less odd, and it's better than nothing.' He turned out the lamp to its last spark, and then with a puff of breath extinguished it altogether. 'Tu m'attends, George?' he called to somebody outside.