Читать книгу Sandburrs and Others - Lewis Alfred Henry - Страница 10

CHAPTER I

François St. Cyr is a Frenchman. He is absent two years from La Belle France. He and his little wife, Bebe, live not far from Washington Square. They love each other like birds. Yet François St. Cyr is gay, and little Bebe is jealous. Once a year the Ball of France is held at the Garden. Bebe turns up a nose and will not so belittle herself. So François St. Cyr attends the Ball of France alone. However, he does not repine. François St. Cyr is permitted to be more de gage; the ladies more abandon. At least that is the way François St. Cyr explains it.

It is the night of the Ball of France. François St. Cyr is there. The Garden lights shine on fair women and brave men. It is a masque. The costumes are fancy, some of them feverishly so. A railroad person present says there isn’t enough costume on some of the participants to flag a hand-car. No one has any purpose, however, to flag a hand-car; the deficiency passes unnoticed. Had the railroader spoken of flagging a beer waggon —mon Dieu! that would have been another thing!

A prize, a casket of jewels, is to be given to the best dressed lady. A bacchante in white satin trimmed with swans’ down and diamonds the size and lustre of salt-cellars is appointed the beneficiary by popular acclaim. François St. Cyr, as one of the directors of the ball, presents the jewels in a fiery speech. The music crashes, the mad whirl proceeds. A supple young woman, whose trousseau would have looked lonely in a collar-box, kicks off the hat of François St. Cyr. Sapriste! how she charms him! He drinks wine from her little shoe!

CHAPTER II

The morning papers told of the beauty in swans’ down; the casket of jewels, and the presentation rhetoric of François St. Cyr, flowing like a river of oral fire. Bebe read it with the first light of dawn. Peste! Later, when François St. Cyr came home, Bebe hurled the clock at him from an upper window. Bebe followed it with other implements of light housekeeping. François St. Cyr fled wildly. Then he wept and drank beer and talked of his honour.

CHAPTER III

The supple person who kicked the hat of François St. Cyr was a chorus girl. The troop in whose outrages she assisted was billed to infuriate Newark that evening. François St. Cyr would seek surcease in Newark. He would bind a new love on the heart bruised and broken by the jealous Bebe. Mon Dieu! yes!

The curtain went up. François St. Cyr inhabited a box. He was very still; no mouse was more so. No one noticed François St. Cyr. At last the chorus folk appeared.

“Brava! mam’selle, brava!” shouted François St. Cyr, springing to his feet, and performing with his hands as with cymbals.

What merited this outburst? The chorus folk had done nothing; hadn’t slain a note, nor murdered a melody. The audience stared at the shouting François St. Cyr. What ailed the man? At last the audience admonished François St. Cyr.

“Sit down! Shut up!”

Those were the directions the public gave François St. Cyr.

“I weel not sit down! I weel not close up!” shouted François St. Cyr, bending over the box-rail and gesticulating like a monkey whose reason was suffering a strain. Then again to the chorus girl:

“Brava! mam’selle, brava!”

The other chorus girls looked disdainfully at the chorus girl whom François St. Cyr honoured, so as to identify her to the contempt of the public.

CHAPTER IV

Francois St. Cyr suddenly discharged a bouquet at the stage. It was the size of a butter tub. It mowed a swath through the chorus like a chain shot.

“Put him out!” commanded the public.

“Poot heem out!” repeated François St. Cyr with a shriek of sneering contempt. “Canaille! I def-fy you! I am a Frenchman; I do not fee-ar to die!”

Wafted to his duty on the breath of general opinion, a gend’arme of Newark acquired François St. Cyr, and bore him vociferating from the scene of his triumph.

As he was carried through the foyer, he raised his voice heroically:

“Vive le Boulanger!”

CHAPTER V

The next public appearance of François St. Cyr was in the Newark Police Court. He was pale and limp, and had thoughts of suicide. He was still clothed in his dress suit, which clung to him as if it, too, felt “des-pond.”

François St. Cyr was fined $20.

Bebe, the jealous, the faithful little Bebe, was there to pay the money. Mon Dieu! how he loved her! He would be her bird and sing to her all her life! Never would he leave his Bebe more! As for the false one of the chorus: François St. Cyr “des-spised” her.

Also Bebe had brought the week-day suit of François St. Cyr. Could an angel have had more forethought? François St. Cyr changed his clothes in a jury room, and Bebe and he came home cooing like turtle doves.

CHAPTER VI

By virtue of the every-day suit, the St. Cyrs were home by 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Otherwise, under the rules, being habited in a dress suit, François St. Cyr could not have returned until 6,

And they were happy!