Nobody's Boy Part 34

"No, I've not forgotten that."

"You were not alone then; you had some one to look after you. At your age I don't think it is right to go tramping across the country alone."

"You don't want me to bring you news of your children, then?" I asked.

"They told me that you were going to see them all, one after the other,"

he replied, "but I am not thinking of us when I ask you to give up this wandering life."

"And if I do what you ask I should be thinking of myself and not of you ... of Lise."

This time he looked at me for several seconds, then he suddenly took both my hands.

"You have a heart, and I will not say another word, my boy. G.o.d will take care of you."

I threw my arms round his neck; the time had come for me to say good-by.

For some moments he held me in silence, then suddenly he felt in his vest pocket and pulled out a large silver watch.

"Here, boy, take this," he said. "I want you to have it as a keepsake.

It isn't of much value; if it had been I'd have sold it. It doesn't keep good time, either. When anything is wrong with it, just give it a thump.

It is all I have."

I wanted to refuse such a beautiful present, but he forced it into my closed hands.

"Oh, I don't need to know the time," he said sadly; "the hours pa.s.s slowly enough. I should die counting them. Good-by, little Remi; always remember to be a good boy."

I was very unhappy. How good he had been to me! I lingered round the prison doors for a long time after I had left him. I might have stayed there perhaps until night if I had not suddenly touched a hard round object in my pocket. My watch!

All my grief was forgotten for the moment. My watch! My very own watch by which I could tell the time. I pulled it out to see the hour. Midday!

It was a matter of small importance whether it was midday, ten o'clock or two o'clock. Yet, I was very pleased that it was midday. It would have been hard to say why, but such was the case. I knew that it was midday; my watch told me so. What an affair! It seemed to me that a watch was a sort of confidential friend of whom one could ask advice and to whom one could talk.

"Friend watch, what's the time?"

"Just twelve o'clock, my dear Remi."

"Really! Then it's time for me to do this or that. A good thing you reminded me; if you had not, I should have forgotten."

In my joy I had not noticed that Capi was almost as pleased as myself.

He pulled me by the leg of my trousers and barked several times. As he continued to bark, I was forced to bestow some attention upon him.

"What do you want, Capi?" I asked.

He looked at me, but I failed to understand him. He waited some moments, then came and stood up against me, putting his paws on the pocket where I had placed my watch. He wanted to know the time to tell the "distinguished audience," like in the days when he had worked with Vitalis.

I showed the watch to him. He looked at it for some time, as though trying to remember, then, wagging his tail, he barked twelve times. He had not forgotten! We could earn money with my watch! That was something I had not counted upon.

Forward march, children!

I took one last look at the prison, behind the walls of which little Lise's father was shut, then went on my way.

The thing I needed most of all was a map of France. Knowing that in the book stalls on the quays I could procure one, I wended my way towards the river. At last I found one that was so yellow that the man let me have it for fifteen sous.

I was able to leave Paris now, and I decided to do so at once. I had a choice between two roads. I chose the road to Fontainebleau. As I went up the Rue Mouffetard, a host of memories rushed upon me. Garofoli!

Mattia! Ricardo! the soup pot fastened with a padlock, the whip, and Vitalis, my poor, good master, who had died because he would not rent me to the _padrone_. As I pa.s.sed the church I saw a little boy leaning against the wall, and I thought I recognized him. Surely it was Mattia, the boy with the big head, the great eyes and the soft, resigned look.

But then he had not grown one inch! I went nearer to see better. Yes, it was Mattia. He recognised me. His pale face broke into a smile.

"Ah, it's you," he said. "You came to Garofoli's a long time ago with an old man with a white beard, just before I went to the hospital. Ah! how I used to suffer with my head then."

"Is Garofoli still your master?"

He glanced round before replying, then lowering his voice he said: "Garofoli is in prison. They took him because he beat Orlando to death."

I was shocked at this. I was pleased to hear that they had put Garofoli in prison, and for the first time I thought the prisons, which inspired me with so much horror, had their use.

"And the other boys?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. I was not there when Garofoli was arrested. When I came out of the hospital, Garofoli, seeing that it was no good to beat me 'cause I got ill, wanted to get rid of me, so he sold me for two years to the Ga.s.sot Circus. They paid him in advance. D'ye know the Ga.s.sot Circus? No? Well, it's not much of a circus, but it's a circus all the same. They wanted a child for dislocation, and Garofoli sold me to Mr. Ga.s.sot. I stayed with him until last Monday, when he sent me off because my head was too big to go into the box. After leaving the circus I went back to find Garofoli, but the place was all shut up, and a neighbor told me what had happened. Now that Garofoli's in prison I don't know where to go.

"And I haven't any money," he added, "and I haven't had a bite to eat since yesterday."

I was not rich, but I had enough to give something to poor Mattia. How I would have blessed one who would have given me a crust of bread when I was wandering round Toulouse, famished like Mattia now.

"Stay here until I come back," I said.

I ran to a bakery at the corner of the street and soon returned with a roll, which I offered him. He devoured it in a moment.

"Now," I said, "what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. I was trying to sell my violin when you spoke to me, and I would have sold it before, if I hadn't hated to part with it. My violin is all I have and when I'm sad, I find a spot where I can be alone and play to myself. Then I see all sorts of beautiful things in the sky, more beautiful than in a dream."

"Why don't you play your violin in the streets?"

"I did, but I didn't get anything."

How well I knew what it was to play and not get a coin.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I don't know why, but on the spur of the moment, I put up a ridiculous bluff.

"I'm the boss of a company," I said proudly.

It was true, but the truth was very near a falsehood. My "company" only consisted of Capi.

"Oh, will you...." began Mattia.

"What?"

"Take me in your company?"