Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 42

"Then prepare at once to leave my house. Take up your bundle and walk!"

The peremptory manner in which these words were said caused Jacques to pause and weigh matters.

"If my employer actually does send me off," he probably said to himself, "then adieu to Pauline for ever, but if I consent to apologise, I shall remain here, and may in time succeed in cutting out the Englishman."

This was probably his mode of reasoning, for he was too good a politician not to know where his interests lay, so changing his tone entirely, and gulping down with difficulty something that was rising in his throat, and which, if he had given expression to, would probably have resembled an ingenious French oath, he replied with great apparent calmness,

"Monsieur Le Chauve, you have always been a good master to me, and I have always tried to prove myself worthy of your kindness, and I should be sorry to leave you for a trifle, therefore I will obey you, and will demand pardon of _mon cher confrere l'anglais_, for having in a moment of ungovernable pa.s.sion kicked him in the eye, and insulted him."

This was said in turning towards me, and in all humility.

"And you, Monsieur Suds, if you forgive him, offer him your hand."

I extended my hand towards my fellow a.s.sistant, which he took in his, and I expressed sorrow for the part I had had in the quarrel, but I noticed that the hand of Jacques Millefleurs was icy cold.

"_Allons mes enfants_," said Le Chauve, "now don't let me hear any more of these silly quarrels, but go in peace."

We both set about our respective duties, but I knew enough of the Frenchman's character to be sure that his apology did not come from his heart, but had been forced out of him from motives of policy, and I was not at all sure that this would be the last of such quarrels, but had no doubt that he would vent his petty spite upon me on the very next opportunity.

I had hardly re-settled myself, and proceeded with my wig, when a stranger of dignified appearance entered and demanded to be shaved. I had no difficulty in recognising in him a countryman. Glad of an opportunity of speaking English again after so long, I answered him in his own mother tongue.

"Want to be shaved, sir? Yes, sir."

"Ah, you are English!" he said.

"Yes, sir, one of the latest imported," said I. "Only arrived here a month ago to perfect myself in the art of barber-craft amongst these foreigners. Served under Mr. Hackchin in the village of D----, in ----shire, where I have learnt to shave, cut hair, make wigs, mix hair grease, and all the rest of it, and as for tooth drawing, bleeding, and quack salving, you won't find the likes of me in all the countryside. My name is Suds, sir, at your service. Maybe you have heard tell of my father or my grandfather. The Suds have been barbers from time immemorial."

"Oh, indeed?" said the stranger. Then muttered to himself, "Suds--Suds--I fancy I have heard the name before."

And I should just think he had, gentlemen. Why, my grandfather once shaved His Majesty King George I., or George II., or Queen Anne, or one of that lot, I forget which, as my father used to tell me.

Well, gentlemen, when I had got my countryman fairly lathered, and had commenced operations, I noticed that he glanced half-quizzingly at my eye, which was now black and swollen from the kick I had received from my adversary.

"You seem to have a bad cold in your eye, Mr. Suds," he remarked, with an ill-repressed smile.

"No, sir," I replied, "it is not exactly that."

"Not a cold!" exclaimed he, feigning astonishment. "Dear me! it's very like one. Then if I might venture to guess, I should say you had been in a fight, and got the worst of it."

"Well, not exactly, sir," said I; "not the worst of it; no, not the worst of it. It is true I had a slight difference of opinion this morning with a young man of the shop, a mere trifle--an affair of jealousy, that's all, sir."

"And I presume that that neat little baggage in the corner of the shop with the jimp waist and well starched cap was the fair cause of this trifling jealousy--am I right?"

"Well, really, sir, your penetration is such that it serves not to deny it," said I. "If you had only arrived five minutes earlier, you would have caught me at it tooth and nail. Oh! it _was_ fine, sir. He caught me a kick in the eye unawares--French fashion you know, sir. Englishmen don't like that sort of game, it takes them by surprise; but you should have seen how I floored him with a good English blow in the chest that made him measure his length upon the ground. You should have heard what a whack his head came against the floor. It sounded for all the world like an empty cask. It will ache for him this next fortnight to come, I'll warrant."

"Oh! then England _wasn't_ thrashed after all?" said he.

"Not a bit of it," said I, proudly.

"Well, you seem a smart lad," said he. "I don't mind giving you a job to do every morning during my stay in Paris. Suppose you come every morning to my hotel to shave me."

"With pleasure, sir," said I.

"Here is my address," said he, handing me a card.

I read the name Lord Goldborough, Hotel ----, Rue ----, No. 25 _au premier_. I fell into a sort of stupor at the discovery that I had been shaving a real live lord, without knowing it. So taken aback was I, that I forgot to stuff his pockets with bears' grease, tooth powder, fancy soaps, hair dye, tooth and nail brushes, etc.

Before I had well recovered, he was out of the shop. He had left an English paper behind him by mistake, and a letter, the former of which I perused, while the latter I placed in my pocket, to return to him on the morrow at his hotel.

No sooner had my countryman left the shop than Pauline asked me if he wasn't an Englishman.

"Yes," I replied, glad of an opportunity of making myself big in her eyes and of inspiring my rival with awe and respect for me; "his name is Lord Goldborough, _un grand milord_, who has known me many years, and all my family. In fact," said I, "he is distantly connected with us."--(I did not say on account of our both being descended from Adam).

I told them in the shop that he had engaged my services every morning at his hotel to shave him, for old acquaintance sake, and finally that he had called on me on purpose, under the excuse of being shaved, to lend me that paper to read, where there was a long account of the great political deeds of a celebrated English minister related to us both; in fact, no less a man than the renowned William Pitt. There's no harm in making yourself as big as you can when you are sure of not being found out--eh, gentlemen?--and when you do come out with a lie, tell a good 'un whilst you're about it--that's my morality.

Pauline raised her eyebrows and looked at me archly, half incredulously.

Jacques, who had been sulkily combing out some bunches of hair for wig-making behind the counter, looked up for a moment, his mouth wide open with astonishment, then resumed his work.

I little knew at the time how dearly I should have to pay for a few idle words. These are dangerous times to jest in, gentlemen, especially t'other side of the water, and if you happen to have an enemy. I was inexperienced in these matters then, but I have bought my experience since, and dearly enough I had to pay for it.

On the following morning I hastened to keep my appointment with my n.o.ble countryman. I found him very affable and condescending, and he was pleased to compliment me on my skill in barber-craft. He talked to me much about England and my family, of politics, of the French, etc., and asked me how I liked foreign parts. I naturally felt flattered at the interest he seemed to take in me, but I knew how to keep my place, always styling him "my lord" and "your lordship." In fact, we got on capitally together. When I returned to the shop I bragged of the intimacy between my patron and myself, not always sticking literally to the truth, but colouring my reception a little highly to excite envy and respect in my rival and interest in Pauline.

After this I went regularly every day to his lordship, and came back after every visit with an extravagantly coloured account of my n.o.ble customer's bounty and friendship for me, as well as the unlimited share of his confidence that I enjoyed. Pauline's smiles grew daily more winning, and Jacques scowled more and more savagely from behind the counter.

One morning, as I was preparing as usual to start for my n.o.ble patron's hotel, an ugly-looking ruffian, dressed in the preposterous fashion of the "incroyables," entered the shop, and strutting up to my employer, who was hard at work on a new wig, said, "Citoyen, you harbour a '_suspect_.'"

"Not I, my friend, I a.s.sure you," said Le Chauve. "It is a mistake; I have no one in the house but my wife and daughter and two apprentices--one an Englishman lately arrived."

"Just so, an Englishman, a spy of the English Government; a most dangerous character, and on the most intimate terms with Lord Goldboro', who is himself a spy."

"It cannot possibly be my a.s.sistant Suds," muttered my employer to himself.

"_Oui, Suds, c'est bien lui, le voici_," and he showed a warrant for my immediate arrest.

"_Mais c'est impossible, monchere, ce pauvre garcon, si jeune, si innocent_," pleaded my kind employer.

"Nevertheless, I have my orders. If he is innocent, he will be proved so. I come not to dispute whether he be innocent or guilty, but to arrest him," said the incroyable. "_Allons, ou est-il?_"

Now, concealment I knew to be impossible, resistance futile. The only thing to be done was to face the matter out boldly and trust to Providence. (Of course, I made no doubt as to whom I had to thank for my arrest.) So walking bravely into the shop, without any show of fear, I thus accosted the incroyable, "So, citoyen, it appears you have orders to arrest me. I will not dispute your authority, although I know myself to be innocent of the charges brought against me. I can pretty well guess _which_ of my kind friends has been so considerate as to procure for me a safe night's lodging free from expense, and his motive in doing so."

Here I darted a withering glance at Jacques, who cowered beneath my gaze, and another pleading one at Pauline, as if I would say, "You see how I am betrayed, and by whom."

Pauline stood pale as death--or rather, leant against the wall for support. She seemed unable to utter a word, and yet seemed struggling with herself to defend me. As if spell-bound, she looked on in mute horror, until the guard entered the shop, and I had barely time to say, "_Au revoir, Monsieur le Chauve; adieu, Mademoiselle Pauline._ I am innocent, whatever my enemies may try and make me out, and doubt not but I shall be able to prove my innocence. Await my speedy return. _En evant, gards_," and off I was conducted by the soldiers.

I was hardly out of the shop when a piercing female shriek reached my ears, and poor Pauline had fallen fainting to the ground. I saw and heard no more, for though I was outwardly calm, my brain was racked with the direst apprehensions.

Here I was being led openly through the streets of Paris like a felon--whither? To prison--to the Bastille, to be tried; possibly, nay probably, to be condemned to death. What for? What had I done? "Nothing; I am innocent," I said to myself. "No matter, so have others been that have likewise perished by the guillotine," I thought I heard a voice inwardly say. "Executions are now of daily occurrence, and not individuals, but hundreds of individuals, perish for they know not what.

Marat, from out his obscure lodgings, and seated up to the neck in his warm bath, doth complacently issue forth his b.l.o.o.d.y orders, from which not even innocence itself is free. Oh, the malignity of human nature!"

thought I. "Base, base Jacques Millefleurs! for who else could have betrayed me? And Pauline, poor girl! what would become her?"