The Sin of Monsieur Pettipon Part 46

"Alas, but too often," answered Monsieur Bonticu.

"You should hear my Rosalie," sighed Monsieur Pantan. "I too seek consolation as you do. I talk with my Clotilde."

Monsieur Bonticu nodded, sympathetically.

"My wife is always nagging me for more money," he said with a sudden burst of confidence. "And the undertaking business, my dear Pantan, is not what it was."

"Do I not know?" said Pantan. "When folks are well we both suffer."

"I stagger beneath my load," sighed Bonticu.

"My load is no less light," remarked Pantan.

"If my family responsibilities should increase," observed Bonticu, "it would be little short of a calamity."

"If mine did," said Pantan, "it would be a tragedy."

"And yet," mused Bonticu, "our responsibilities seem to go on increasing."

"Alas, it is but too true."

"The statesmen are talking of limiting armaments," remarked Bonticu.

"An excellent idea," said Pantan, warmly.

"Can it be that they are more astute than two veteran truffle-hunters?"

"They could not possibly be, my dear Bonticu."

There was a pregnant pause. Monsieur Bonticu broke the silence.

"In the heat of the chase," he said, "one does things and says things one afterwards regrets."

"Yes. That is true."

"In his excitement one might even so far forget himself as to call a fellow sportsman--a really excellent fellow--a puff-ball."

"That is true. One might."

Suddenly Monsieur Bonticu thrust his fat hand toward Monsieur Pantan.

"You are not a puff-ball, Armand," he said. "You never were a puff-ball!"

Tears leaped to the little man's eyes. He seized the extended hand in both of his and pressed it.

"Aristide!" was all he could say. "Aristide!"

"We shall drink," cried Bonticu, "to the art of truffle-hunting."

"The science--" corrected Pantan, gently.

"To the art-science of truffle-hunting," cried Bonticu, raising his gla.s.s.

The moon smiled down on Perigord. On the ancient, twisted streets of Montpont it smiled with particular brightness. Down the Rue Victor Hugo, in the middle of the street, went two men, a very stout big man and a very thin little man, arm in arm, and singing, for all Montpont, and all the world, to hear, a s.n.a.t.c.h of an old song from some forgotten revue.

"_Oh, Gaby, darling Gaby.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Why don't you come to me?

Bam! Bam! Bam!

And jump in the arms of your own true love, While the wind blows chilly and cold?

Bam! Bam! Bam!_"

XII: _The $25,000 Jaw_

"Rather thirsty this morning, eh, Mr. Add.i.c.ks?" inquired Cowdin, the chief purchasing agent. The "Mister" was said with a long, hissing "s"

and was distinctly not meant as a t.i.tle of respect.

Cowdin, as he spoke, rested his two square hairy hands on Croly Add.i.c.ks'

desk, and this enabled him to lean forward and thrust his well-razored k.n.o.b of blue-black jaw within a few inches of Croly Add.i.c.ks' face.

"Too bad, Mr. Add.i.c.ks, too bad," said Cowdin in a high, sharp voice. "Do you realize, Mr. Add.i.c.ks, that every time you go up to the water cooler you waste fifteen seconds of the firm's time? I might use a stronger word than 'waste,' but I'll spare your delicate feelings. Do you think you can control your thirst until you take your lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria, or shall I have your desk piped with ice water, Mr.

Add.i.c.ks?"

Croly Add.i.c.ks drew his convex face as far away as he could from the concave features of the chief purchasing agent and muttered, "Had kippered herring for breakfast."

A couple of the stenographers t.i.ttered. Croly's ears reddened and his hands played nervously with his blue-and-white polka-dot necktie. Cowdin eyed him for a contemptuous half second, then rotated on his rubber heel and prowled back to his big desk in the corner of the room.

Croly Add.i.c.ks, inwardly full of red revolution, outwardly merely fl.u.s.tered and intimidated, rustled among the piles of invoices and forms on his desk, and tried desperately to concentrate on his task as a.s.sistant to the a.s.sistant purchasing agent of the Pierian Piano Company, a vast far-flung enterprise that boasted, with only slight exaggeration, "We bring melody to a million homes." He hated Cowdin at all times, and particularly when he called him "Mr. Add.i.c.ks." That "Mister" hurt worse than a slap on a sunburned shoulder. What made the hate almost beyond bearing was the realization on Croly's part that it was impotent.

"Gawsh," murmured the blond stenographer from the corner of her mouth, after the manner of convicts, "Old Grizzly's pickin' on the chinless wonder again. I don't see how Croly stands it. I wouldn't if I was him."

"Aw, wadda yuh expeck of Chinless?" returned the brunette stenographer disdainfully as she crackled paper to conceal her breach of the office rules against conversation. "Feller with ingrown jaws was made to pick on."

At noon Croly went out to his lunch, not to the big hotel, as Cowdin had suggested, but to a crowded bas.e.m.e.nt full of the jangle and clatter of cutlery and crockery, and the smell and sputter of frying liver. The name of this cave was the Help Yourself Buffet. Its habitues, mostly clerks like Croly, p.r.o.nounced "buffet" to rhyme with "rough it," which was incorrect but apt.

The place was, as its patrons never tired of reminding one another as they tried with practiced eye and hand to capture the largest sandwiches, a conscience beanery. As a matter of fact, one's conscience had a string tied to it by a cynical management.

The system is simple. There are piles of food everywhere, with prominent price tags. The hungry patron seizes and devours what he wishes. He then pa.s.ses down a runway and reports, to the best of his mathematical and ethical ability, the amount his meal has cost--usually, for reasons unknown, forty-five cents. The report is made to a small automaton of a boy, with a blase eye and a bra.s.sy voice. He hands the patron a ticket marked 45 and at the same instant screams in a sirenic and incredulous voice, "Fawty-fi'." Then the patron pa.s.ses on down the alley and pays the cashier at the exit. The purpose of the boy's violent outcry is to signal the spotter, who roves among the foods, a derby hat c.o.c.ked over one eye and an untasted sandwich in his hand, so that persons deficient in conscience may not basely report their total as forty-five when actually they have eaten ninety cents' worth.

On this day, when Croly Add.i.c.ks had finished his modest lunch, the spotter was lurking near the exit. Several husky-looking young men pa.s.sed him, and brazenly reported totals of twenty cents, when it was obvious that persons of their brawn would not be content with a lunch costing less than seventy-five; but the spotter noting their bull necks and bellicose air let them pa.s.s. But when Croly approached the desk and reported forty-five the spotter pounced on him. Experience had taught the spotter the type of man one may pounce on without fear of sharp words or resentful blows.

"Pahdun me a minute, frien'," said the spotter. "Ain't you made a little mistake?"

"Me?" quavered Croly. He was startled and he looked guilty, as only the innocent can look.