Читать книгу The Adventures of François - S. Weir Mitchell - Страница 4

IV

Of how the world used François, and of the reward of virtue. He makes his first friend.

When Tomas, having won his way out of the press about a fortune-teller, looked for François, there was a lost choir-boy and two days' diet gone none knew whither—least of all the fugitive. He moved away with the speed of fear, and was soon in the somber network of narrow streets which in those days made a part of the Île de la Cité the refuge of the finest assortment of thieves, bravos, gypsies, and low women to be found in any capital of Europe.

His scared looks and decent black suit betrayed him. An old fellow issued from a doorway like a spider. "Ha, ha, little thief!" he said; "I will buy thy plunder."

François was well pleased. He took eagerly the ten sous offered, and saw the spider poke a long red beak into the loaded nets as he passed out of sight in the dark doorway. François looked at the money. It was the first he had ever owned. He walked away in haste, happy to be free, and so over a bridge to the Île St. Louis, with its pretty gardens and the palaces of the great nobles. At the far end of the isle he sat down in the sun and watched the red barges go by, and took no more care for to-morrow than does a moth just out of its cocoon. He caught up the song of a man near by who was mending a bateau. He whistled as he cast stones into the water. It was June, and warm, and before him the river playing with the sunset gold, and behind him the dull roar of Paris. Ah, the pleasure to do as he would! Why had he waited so long?

Toward night he wandered back into the Cité, and saw an old woman selling fried potatoes, and crying, "Two sous, two sous!" He asked for thus much, and received them in the top of his cap. The hag took his ten-sou piece, and told him to begone. Amazed at this bit of villainy, poor François entreated her to give him his change. She called him a thief, and when a dreadful man sallied out of a wine-shop and made murderous threats, the boy ran as fast as he could go, and never ceased until he got to the river again. There, like Suzanne, he kept watch for the foes of property, and at last ate his potatoes, and began to reflect on this last lesson in morality. He had stolen many morsels, many dinners, and his fair share of wine; but to be himself robbed of his entire means was calculated to enlarge his views of what is possible in life, and also undesirable. The night was warm; he slept well in an abandoned barge, but woke up early to feel that liberty had its drawbacks, and that emptiness of stomach was one of the large family of needs which stimulate the ingenuity of man or boy.

Quite at a loss, he wandered once more through the slums of the Cité, and soon lost himself in the network of narrow streets to the north of the cathedral, hearing, as he went, strange slang, which his namesake François Villon would have better understood than he. The filth of the roadways and that of the tongue were here comparable. Some boys, seeing his sober suit of the dark cloth worn by the choir, pelted him with stones. He ran for his life, and falling over a man who was sawing wood, received a kick for remembrance. Far away he paused breathless in a dark lane which seemed unpeopled, and where the houses leaned over like palsied old scoundrels who whisper to one another of ancient crime. Even to a boy the place was of a sudden terrible. There was murder in the air.

He felt, without knowing why, the danger of the place. A painted creature, half clad, came out of a house—a base animal whom the accident of sex had made a woman. She called to him to come in. He turned and went by her in haste and horror. A man in a red shirt ran toward him, crying out some ordures of speech. As he fled there was a sudden peopling of window and doorway with half-naked drunken men and women. He had never before seen such faces. He was in that pit of crime and bestiality which before long was to overflow and riot in a limitless debauch of blood. The boy's long legs served him well. He dodged and ran this way and that. At the mouth of the cul-de-sac a lank boy caught him by the arm. François struck him fiercely, and with a sense of joy in the competence of the first blow he had ever given one of his own years, he fled again; nor did he pause until, free from foes, he stood panting in the open sunshine below the great buttresses of Notre Dame.

He saw here that no one took notice of him, and, once more at ease, crossed from the Cité to the right bank of the Seine. Thus wandering he came at last to one of the low bridges which spanned the broad ditches then bounding the Place Louis XV, where now is the Place de la Concorde. The ducks and swans in these canals delighted him. He lingered, liking the gaiety and careless joy of the children with their nurses. The dogs, acrobats, musketeers, and the pomp of heavy, painted carriages rolling by with servants in liveries, the Swiss guards, the magnificence of the king's palace, were all to him as a new world might have been.

He went on, and at last along the Rue St. Honoré and to the Palais Royal, where, amid its splendid shops, cafés, jugglers, fortune-tellers, and richly clad people, he forgot for an hour his poor little stomach and its claims. By and by he took note of the success of a blind beggar. He watched him for an hour, and knew that he had in this time gathered in sous at least a franc. The shrunken stomach of the boy began to convert its claims into demands, and with this hint he put on a sad face and began to beg. It was not a very prosperous business; but he stated his emptiness so pitifully, and his voice had such sweet, pleading notes, that at last he thus acquired six or eight sous, and retired to the outer gate to count them.

The imprudence of estimating wealth in public was soon made clear to him. He was seated back of the open grille, his cap on his lap, when a quick, clawlike hand, thrust between the railings, darted over his shoulder, and seized two thirds of his gains. He started up in time to see that the thief was the blind beggar, who was away and lost in the crowd and among the horses and carriages, to all appearances in excellent possession of the sense of sight. Pursuit was vain. Francois's education was progressing. Most lads thus tormented by fate would have given way to rage or tears. François cried out, "Sathanas!" not knowing as yet any worse expletive, and burst into a roar of laughter. At least there were three sous left, and these he put into his pocket. His lessons were not over. The crowd thinned at noon, and he rose to go in search of food. At this moment a gentleman in very gorgeous dress, with ruffles, sword, and a variety of dazzling splendors, went by, and at the boy's feet let fall a lace handkerchief. François seized it, and stood still a moment. Then he put it in his breast, and again stood still. To take food is one thing; to steal a handkerchief is quite another. He was weak with hunger, but he had three sous. He ran after the gentleman, and cried:

"Here is your handkerchief!"

"A very honest lad," said its owner; "you will do well in the world "; and so went his way, leaving to virtue the proverbial reward of virtue. This time François did not laugh. In the Rue St. Honoré he bought some boiled beans for two sous, and retired to eat them in peace on the steps of St. Roch. Soon he saw a woman with a tin pan come out of a little shop and after her a half-grown black poodle. She set down the pan, and left the dog to his meal. François reconnoitered cautiously, and giving the dog a little kick, fled with the pan, and was shortly safe in an unfrequented passage behind the church. Here he found that he was master of a chop and a half-eaten leg of chicken. He had eaten the chop and some crusts, as well as the beans, when he became aware of the black poodle, which, being young, still had confidence in human nature, and now, with sense of ownership, thrust his black nose in the pan of lessening viands.

François laughed gaily. The touch of friendly trust gave the lonely boy a thrill of joy, and, with some reluctance doubtless, he gave the dog what was left, feeding him in bits, and talking as a comrade to a comrade. The poodle was clearly satisfied. This was very delightful society, and he was receiving such attention as flatters a decent dog's sense of his social position. The diet was less than usual, but the company was of the best, and inspired the extreme of confidence. There is a charm of equality as between dog and boy. Both are of Bohemia. The poodle stood up when asked to beg. He was invited to reveal his name. He received with the sympathetic sadness of the motionless tail the legend of François's woes.

When at last François rose, the dog followed him a little way, saying plainly, "Where thou goest I will go." But the unlicked pan needed attention; he turned back to the fleshpots. Seeing himself deserted, a vague sadness came upon François. It was the shadow of an uncomprehended emotion. He said, "Adieu, mon ami!" and left the little black fellow with his nose in the pan.

An hour of wandering here and there brought François to the palisades around the strong foundations of the new church of the Madeleine. Beyond were scattered country houses, the Pépinières of the king, and the great English garden of Monceaux belonging to the Duc d'Orléans. This fascinating stretch of trees and green and boundless country was like a heavenly land to the boy. No dream could be more strange. He set out by the Rue de la Pologne, and at last went with timid doubt through the barrière, and was soon in the open country. To his surprise, he heard a yap at his side, and there was the little black poodle, apparently as well pleased as he. François had no scruples as to ownership. Mon Dieu! had he stolen the dog, or had the dog stolen him? They ran along happy, the boy as little troubled as the dog by questions of conscience. The country was not productive of easily won food, but a few stolen plums were to be had. A girl coming from milking gave a jug of milk, which François, despite keen hunger, shared with his friend. When a couple of miles from Paris, he sat down to rest by the roadside. The dog leaped on to his lap, and the boy, as he lay in the sun, began to think of a name for this new friend. He tried merrily all the dog-names he could think of; but when at last he called, "Toto!" the poodle barked so cordially that François sagaciously inclined to the belief that he must have hit upon the poodle's name. "Toto it shall be," he cried. All that day they wandered joyfully, begged a crust, and at night slept in an orchard, the poodle clasped to the boy's bosom—a pair of happy vagabonds.

When, next day, the pair of them, half starved, were disconsolately returning toward Paris, an old woman bade François earn a few sous by picking strawberries. But the dog must not range the garden; he should be tied in the kitchen. François worked hard at the matter in hand, taking good toll of the berries, and at noon went back with the old dame to her cottage.

"It is five sous, mon garçon, and a bowl of milk thou shalt have, and a bit of meat; and how merry thou art!"

Alas! as she opened the door the poodle fled past her with a whole steak in his mouth. Hot it was, but of such delicate savor that it gave him courage to hold on. The old woman threw a stool after him, and cried out in wrath that they were both thieves. Then she turned on poor François with fury and a broom, so that he had scarce time to leap the fence and follow the dog. He found him at last with his rather dusty prize; and seeing no better thing to do, he went deep into a wood, and there filled himself as he had not done for days. The brigand Toto had his share, and thus reinforced, they set out again to return to Paris.

V

Of the immorality which may come of an empty stomach, and of how François became acquainted with a human crab.

This nomad life was sadly uncertain; but Toto was a sharp forager, and what with a sou begged here and there, and the hospitality of summer, for a while they were not ill contented. But at last François passed two days of such lean living as set his wits to work. There was clearly no help for it, and with a rueful face he entered the shop whence Toto had followed his uncertain fortunes.

The owner was a pleasant little woman who took honesty for granted. Yes, it was her dog; and how long he had been gone! Here was a great piece of twenty sous; and where did he find the poodle? François declared that he lived near by and knew the dog. He had found him in the Rue du Faubourg St. Lazare. And was it so far away as that? He must be tired, and for his honesty should be well fed. Thus, rich as never before, and with a full stomach, he left Toto tied up, and went out into the world again, lonely and sad.

Needless is it to describe his wanderings, or to relate how the lonely lad acquired the sharp ways of a gamin of the streets. For a while he begged or stole what food he required. Some four months later, a combination of motives led him into theft which was not mere foraging.

On a cold November day he was again in the crowded gardens and arcades of the Palais Royal. He was shabby enough by this time, and was sharply reminded by the cool nights of the need for shelter. By chance his eye lighted on the man who shammed blindness and had stolen his precious sous. The beggar was kneeling, cap in hand, with closed eyes, his head turned upward, entreating pity for his loss of sight. There were some sous in his cap. A François passed he made believe to add another sou, and as he did so deftly scooped up the greater part of the coins.

The blind man cried out; but the boy skipped aside, laughing, well aware that for the beggar to pursue him would be hardly advisable, as he might lose more than he could gain.

A few sous were of small account. They insured a meal, but not a lodging. As he was thus reflecting, he saw near by and presently beside him the gentleman who had so highly appreciated the return of his handkerchief. The coat pockets were large in those days, and the crowd was great. A little white corner of lace besought Master François, crying, "I am food and lodging for thee!" Whereupon it was done, and a lace handkerchief changed owners.

It cannot be said that these downward steps cost François any moral discomfort. He grinned as he thought of the beggar's perplexity, and laughed outright as he felt how complete had been his own joy in the satisfaction of possession could he have made the owner of the kerchief understand that he had suffered not merely a theft, but the punishment of injustice.

François was now too well versed in the ways of the street-boy, too dirty and too ragged, to fear the Cité. Thither he went, and found a thieves' shop, where he sold the handkerchief, and got ten francs for what was worth thirty.

The question of a place where he could be sure of a bed was his first consideration on coming into his fortune. In the long, warm summers of France one who was not particular could find numerous roosting-places, but in winter a more constant home was to be desired.

In the Cité François had occasionally lodged here and there when he could afford to pay, and had been turned out when he had no more sous. Now, being affluent, and therefore hard to please, he wandered until he came upon the lodging-house of an old woman in the Rue Perpignan. He knew of her as a dealer in thieves' goods, and as ever ready to shelter the lucky—and, it was suspected, as willing to betray those who were persistently unfortunate.

What drew him to this woman's house it were hard to tell. She was repulsive in appearance, but, strangely enough, was clean as to her person, dress, and abode. Asylum life had taught François to be cleanly. He declares in his memoirs that he was by habit neat, and that it was the absence of dirt which first tempted him into a relation which was so largely to affect his after life.

When he became one of this woman's lodgers he took a step which was for him of moment. Now for the first time he was to be in the company of old and practised thieves; but he was not yet of an age to be troubled as to the future or to reflect upon the past. The horizon of youth is small.

He found plenty of masters to educate him in the evil business into which he had been driven by relentless fate. Never was pupil more ready. His hostess appreciated the cleverness of her new lodger, but it was long before he himself realized how strange was the aspect and how sinister the nature of this mother of evil.

Certain historical epochs create types of face. This was a period which manufactured many singular visages. None was more strange than that which Mme. Quatre Pattes carried on a body quite as remarkable. François speaks of her over and over in his memoirs, and dwells upon the peculiarities of her appearance. I recall well what he said to me, one evening, of this creature:

"You see, monsieur, I went to one den of thieves and another until I chanced upon the Crab. It is not to be described; for here in a little room was a witch, crumpled and deformed, sharply bent forward as to the back from the waist, and—ah, diablement thin! She was cleanly and even neat, and her room was a marvel, because over there in the Cité men were born and lived and died, and never saw a clean thing. And she was of a strangeness—consider, monsieur; imagine you a bald head, and a lean face below, very red, and the skin drawn so tight over the bones as to shine. Her eyes were little and of a dull gray; but they held you. Her lips were lean, and she kept them moving in a queer way as if chewing. I did laugh when first I saw her, but not often afterward."

When he confided to this clean and horrible creature what he wanted, she made him welcome. She rattled the two sticks which her bent form made needful for support. She would house him cheaply; but he must be industrious—and to sell a lace handkerchief for ten francs—tonnerre! He needed caution. She would be a bonne maman to him—she, Quatre Pattes, "four paws"; the Crab, they called her, too, for short, and because of her red leanness and spite; but what was her real name he did not learn for many a day. At first her appearance excited in his mind no emotion except amazement and mirth. A terrible old crab it was when she showed her toothless gums and howled obscenities, while her sticks were used with strange agility. The quarter feared her. M. François had a fortune in his face, she said; and did he know the savate, the art to kick? There was a master next door. And again, what a face! With that face he might lie all day, and who would disbelieve him? Better to fetch her what he stole. She would see that no one cheated him but herself, and that would be ever so little. One must live. When she laughed, which was not often, François felt that a curse were more gay. There were devil-women in those days, as the mad world of Paris soon came to know; and the Crab, with her purple nose and crooked red claws, was of the worst.

VI

Of how François regained a lost friend, and of his adventure with the poet Horace and another gentleman.

Thus François was launched on what he was pleased to call the business of life, and soon became expert in the transfer of property. Strange to say, he had little pleasure in the debauchery of successful crime, and was too good-natured to like violence. When he had enough for his moderate wants he wandered in the country, here and there, in an aimless, drifting way. Simple things gave him pleasure. He could lie in the woods or on the highway half a day, only moving to keep in the sun. He liked to watch any living creature—to see the cows feed, to observe the birds. He had a charm for all animals. When the wagons went by, dogs deserted them, and came to him for a touch and a word. Best of all it was to sit beside some peasant's beehive, finding there no enmity, and smiling at the laborious lives he had no mind to imitate. Sometimes he yearned for the lost poodle, and had a pang of loneliness. That this man should have had gentle tastes, a liking for nature, a regard for some of the decencies of life, will not surprise those who know well the many varieties of the young criminal class; neither will these be amazed to learn that now and then he heard mass, and crossed himself devoutly when there was occasion. Children he fascinated; a glance of his long, odd face would make them leave nurse and toy, and sidle up to him. In the Cité these singularities made him avoided, while his growing strength caused him to be feared. He sought no friends among the thieves. "Very prudent, that," said Mme. Quatre Pattes; "the more friends, the more enemies."

He was quick and active, and a shrewd observer; for the hard life of the streets had sharpened his naturally ready wits, and he looked far older than his years. Of a Sunday in May he was walking down the Rue St. Honoré, feeling a bit lonely, as was not often the case, when he saw Toto. He whistled, and the poodle ran to him, and would no more of the shop or fat food he liked.

"Toto! Mon Dieu!" he laughed, hugging the dog, his eyes full with the tears of joy. "Hast stolen me again! Wilt never return me? 'T is no honest dog. Viens donc. Come, then, old friend." Joyous in the company of his comrade, who was now well grown, he strolled out into the fields, where Toto caught a rabbit—a terrible crime in those days.

During the next two years the pair fairly prospered. François, as he used to relate, having risen in his profession, found a certain pleasure in good clothes, and being of a dramatic turn, could put on an air of bourgeois sobriety, or, with a sword at his side and a bit of lace here and there, swagger as a lesser gentleman. If things were very bad, he sold Toto and all his fine tricks for a round sum, and in a day or two was sure to find the dog overjoyed and back again at the garret door. The pair were full of devices. There was Toto, a plated snuff-box in his mouth, capering before some old gentle or some slow-pacing merchant; appears François, resistlessly smiling.

"Has monsieur lost a snuff-box? My dog? Yes, monsieur. He is honest, and clever too."

Monsieur, hastily searching, produces his own snuff-box—the indispensable snuff-box of the day.

"No; thanks." And it is noted that the box he shows is of gold, and into what pocket it falls. In the next crowd Toto knows how to make a disturbance with some fat lap-dog, and in the confusion thus created the snuff-box changes owners.

"If the man be sorry, I at least am made happy," says François; "and he hath been the better for a lesson in caution. I got what I needed, and he what he required. Things are very even in this world." François had learned philosophy among the curés and priests of the choir-house. As he avoided great risks, and, as I have said, was averse to violence, he kept clear of detection, and could deceive the police of the king if by rare chance he were in peril of arrest. When the missing property was some minor article, such as a handkerchief, it was instantly hid in Toto's mouth. The dog skipped away, the outraged master was searched; the bewildered owner apologized, and the officers were shocked at such a needless charge. François talked about his offended honor, and as he looked at twenty to be a strong man of full age, the affair was apt to go no further.

Half the cleverness and thought thus devoted to an ignoble pursuit would have given him success in more honest ways. But for a long while no angel chance tempted him, and it must be admitted that he enjoyed the game he pursued, and was easily contented, not eagerly caring to find a less precarious and less risky mode of life.

Temperament is merely a permanent mood. François was like the month of June in his dear Paris. There might be storms and changes, but his mental weather had the pleasant insurance of what was in the order of despotic nature. And yet to be owner of the continual sunshine of cheerfulness has its drawbacks. It deprives a man of some of the wholesome lures of life. It dulls the spurs which goad us to resolve. It may make calamity too easy of endurance. To be too consistently cheerful may be in itself a misfortune. It had for this vagrant all its values and some of its defects. His simple, gay existence, and his flow of effervescent merriment, kept him happy and thoughtless. Most persons of this rare type like company; but François was an exception. He was better pleased to be alone with his dog, and usually desired no other society. As the poodle could not talk, his master was given to making answer for him, and finding no one to his taste among the Crab's villainous lodgers, kept to himself, and was satisfied. Nor did he ever appear to have imagined what the larger world he knew not held of such human society as would have comforted that sense of void in his heart which he acknowledged at times, but had no way to fill. When fortune played him some sorry trick, he laughed, and unconsciously quoted La Rochefoucauld. "Toto, ah, my Toto, one can never be as cunning as everybody." This was apropos of an incident which greatly amused him.

He was in his favorite resort, the Palais Royal, one June morning, and was at this time somewhat short of cash. The Crab had preached him a sharp sermon on his lack of industry, and he had liked neither the sermon nor the preacher. At this moment a young fellow in fine clothes came by. François, producing, as usual, a gaudy snuff-box worth some ten francs, politely asked of monsieur had he lost this box. Monsieur took it in his hand. Yes, yes; he had just missed it, the gift of his god-father, and was much obliged. He let it fall into his pocket, and walked away. François looked after him. "Toto, nous sommes volés—we are sold!" Then the fun of it, as usual, overcame him, and he wandered away to the garden of the Luxembourg, and at last threw himself on a bench, and laughed as a child laughs, being for moments quiet, and then given over to uncontrolled mirth. Having feasted with honest comfort on all the humorous aspects of the situation, his hand chanced to fall on a little book left by some one on the seat. He had long ceased to read, for no books fell in his way, nor could he often have afforded to buy them even had he had a keen appetite for their contents.

FRANÇOIS AND TOTO IN THE LUXEMBOURG.

The little vellum-bound volume opened to his touch, as if used to be generous of what it held. It was Latin, and verse. He knew, or had known, more than most choir-boys needed of this tongue, and the talk of the choir-house was, by stringent rule, in Latin. But this book was not of a religious kind; it half puzzled his mind as he read. Unaccustomed to profane Latin verse, and yet wholly pleased, he began to murmur aloud the rhythmic measures:

"Poseimus, si quid vacui sub umbrâ

Lusimus tecum, quod et hunc in annum

Vivat, et plures: age, dic Latinum,

Barbite, carmen.

"It hath a fine sound, mon ami; and who was this Quintus?" He went on reading aloud the delicious rhythms for the joy of hearing their billowy flow. Now and then he smiled as he caught the full meaning of a line.

The keen-faced poodle sat on the bench beside him, with a caressing head laid against his shoulder; the sun was sweet and warm, the roses were many. The time suited the book, and the book the man. He read on, page after page of the beautiful Aldine type, now and then pausing, vexed to be so puzzled by these half-guessed beautiful riddles.

"Toto, my dog, I would thou didst know Latin. This man he loved the country, and good wine, and girls; and he had friends—friends, which you and I have not."

Then he was lost for an hour. At last he ceased to read, and sat with a finger in the book, idly drifting on the immortal stream of golden song.

"That must have been a merry companion, Toto. I did hear of him once in the choir-house. He must be dead a mighty while ago. If a man is as gay as that, it must be horrid to die."

My poor thief was one of the myriad who through the long centuries had come into kindly touch of the friend of Mæcenas. For the first time in his uncertain life he felt the charm of genius.

Indulgent opportunity was for François always near to some fatal enmity of chance. So does fate deal with the unlucky. He saw coming swiftly toward him a tall, strongly built man of middle age. He was richly dressed, and as he drew near he smiled.

"Ah, monsieur," he said; "I came back in haste to reclaim my little Horace. I missed it only when I got home. I am most fortunate."

François rose. He returned the small volume, but did not speak.

"Monsieur of course knows Horace," said the gentleman, looking him over, a little curious and more than a little interested. Too sure of his own position to shun any intercourse which promised amusement, he went on: "No; not know Horace? Let us sit awhile. The sun is pleasant."

François, rather shy, and suspicious of a manner of man he had never before encountered, sat down, saying, "I was a choir-boy once. I know some Latin, not much; but this sounded pleasant to the ear."

"Yes; it is immortal music. A choir-boy, you said; and pardon me, but, mon Dieu, I heard you laugh as I was searching for my book. You have a fine gift that way, and there is little to laugh at nowadays in France."

"Monsieur will excuse me; I am so made that I laugh at everything and at nothing. I believe I do laugh in my sleep. And just now I laughed because—because—"

"Well, why did you laugh?"

François glanced at the questioner. Something authoritative in his ways made it seem needful to answer, and what this or any man thought of him he cared little—perhaps because in his world opinions went for nothing. And still he hesitated a moment.

"Well?" There was a note of strong surprise in the voice, as if the owner felt it to be unusual that a query he put should not evoke instant reply.

"I laughed because I was cheated."

"Charming, that! May I ask how? But perhaps—"

"No," said François; "if it amuse monsieur, why should I care?" He calmly related his adventure.

The gentleman threw himself back on the seat in an ecstasy of amusement. He was out of humor with the time and with his own world, and bored by the incessant politics of the day; here was a pleasant diversion.

"By St. Denis! my friend, you are like the great Chicot that was fool to King Henry of merry memory."

"And how, monsieur?"

"How? He had a long face that laughed ever, long legs, and a shrewd way of seeming more simple than he was."

"Monsieur flatters me."

"Ah, and a smart rogue, too. I may conclude your profession to be that of relieving the rich of their too excessive luxuries."

François was enchanted with this ingenious and unprejudiced companion, who had, like himself, a sense of the laughable aspects of life.

"Monsieur has hit it," he said gaily; "I am a thief."

No one had taught him to be ashamed of anything but failure in his illegal enterprises.

"Tiens! That is droll;—not that you are a thief: I have known many in my own world. They steal a variety of things, each after his taste in theft—the money of the poor, the character of a man, a woman's honor."

"I scarcely comprehend," said François, who was puzzled.

"They lack your honesty of confession. Could you be altogether honest if a man trusted you?"

"I do not know. No man ever trusted me, and one must live, monsieur."

The gentleman hesitated, and relapsed into the indifference of a too easy life. He had been on the point of offering this outcast a chance.

"Enfin, no doubt you are right. I wish you every success. The deuce! Have you my snuff-box and my handkerchief?"

"Both," said François.

"Then don't run away. I could never catch you. Long legs must be of use in your profession. The snuff-box I will ransom. Let us say fifty francs. It is worth more, but it bears my name, and there are risks."

"Certainly," said François. "And the handkerchief. Monsieur is enrhumé—has a cold; I could not deprive monsieur."

The gentleman thanked him, paid over the money for the box, and, greatly pleased, rose, saying: "You are a dangerous acquaintance; but I trust we may meet again. Au revoir!"

François remained on the bench, Toto at his feet in the sun. This meeting affected him strangely. It had been the first touch of a world remote from his own. He did not recognize the fact that he had gifts which enable men to rise in life. At times he had had vague ambitions, but he was at the foot of a ladder, and the rungs above were broken or not to be seen. These moods were brief, and as to their cause not always clear to him. He was by nature social, and able to like or to love; but the people of the Cité were dreadful, and if now and then some broken refugee from a higher class delighted him for a time, the eventful hand of justice or what not was apt to separate them.

As he looked after the gentleman he felt his charm and the courtesy of his ways as something to be desired. His own form of attractiveness, the influence of joyous laughter and frank approach, he had often and usefully tested; and perhaps this sense of his own power to please made him intelligently apprehensive of what he had just experienced. Had he seized eagerly the half-offered help the gentleman suggested rather than offered, he had been wiser; but it was literally true that, being when possible honest as to speech, he had obeyed the moment's impulse. A better man than the gentleman would have gone further. He had lazily reflected, and concluded that to help this poor devil might be troublesome, and thus the jewel opportunity lay lost at their feet. They were to meet again, and then it was to be the thief's turn.

Now he sat in thought, kicking the ground with his boot. Out of the past came remembrances of the asylum, and how he had been told to be good, and not to kill or to steal, or to do certain other naughty things less clear to him then than now. But this was a far-away time. At the choir-house were the same moral lessons, but they who taught were they who sinned. Since then no one had said a word of reproach to the waif; nor had this great gentleman, and yet he had left him in the rare mood of thought-filled depression.

"Wake up, Toto," he cried; "thou art become too fat. En avant aux champs!" And, followed by the poodle, he went away up the Seine, and was gone so long that Quatre Pattes began to think he had taken to honest courses and would return no more.

He came back in a fortnight, the better for certain prosperous ventures. And thus the days ran on. If fortune were against him, and even diet hard to get, Toto went with the Crab to some distant market after dusk, and, while she bargained, knew to steal a cutlet, and to run away with his prize, and make for home or the next dark lane. But these devices failed at times, and thus François's life consisted of a series of ups and downs. When lucky he bought good clothes, for which he had a liking; when unlucky he pawned them, and went back to garments no one would take in pledge.

It was in the year 1788 that this adventure occurred. He was, as far as was to be guessed, fully twenty-one years of age. His life of adventure, of occasional hardships, and of incessant watchfulness had already given him the appearance of being a far older person.

Always an odd-looking lad, as he grew to maturity his great length of limb, his long face, and ears of unnatural bigness, gave him such singularity of aspect as made disguises impossible.

The poodle was an added danger, and for this reason, when in pursuit of prey, François was forced to leave the dog with Mother Crab. Thus time ran on with such perils as attend the life he led, but with better fortune than could have been expected. As to these later years up to 1790, François, in his memoirs, says little. Once—indeed, twice—he left the Crab's house, only to be driven back by stress of circumstance. After 1790 his account is more complete, and here it is that we take up again the fuller story of his life.

The turmoil of vast governmental and social changes was disturbing all ranks of life. If the Revolution was nursed in the salons, as some say, it was born in the furrows of the tax-tormented peasant, and in the seething caldron of the Cité and the quarters of the starving poor.

François, who cared little what ruler was on top, or who paid taxes, was aware of the uneasy stir in his own neighborhood. Men were more savage. Murder and all violent crimes were more common. That hungry beast, the mob, began to show its fangs, soon to be red with blood. The clubs of all opinions were busy. The church was toppling to ruin, its centuries of greedy gain at an end. Political lines were sharply drawn. The white cockade and the tricolor were the badges of hostile ranks, still more distinctly marked by costume. The cafés were divided: some were Royalist, some Jacobin or neutral. Too many who were of the noble class were flying, or, if more courageous or less forethoughtful, were gathering into bitterly opponent camps. So much of that lower Paris as felt, yearned, hated, and was hungry, glad of any change, was pleased amid tumult to find its chance to plunder and to kill.

The fall of the Bastille in the preceding year had not seemed important to François. He had interested himself in the purses of the vast crowd which looked on and was too much taken up with the event to guard the contents of its pockets. The violence which came after was not to François's taste; but these street crowds were admirable for business until money became scarce, and the snuff-box and the lace handkerchief disappeared with armorial bearings, and with the decree of the people that great dames must no more go in fine carriages.

VII

Wherein is told how François saved a man's neck and learned to juggle.

In the early spring of this year François found himself, one day, in a crowd near to the Porte St. Denis. He stood high on his long legs, looking on, while men on ladders broke up the royal escutcheon on the stone archway. It amused him a little to see how furious they were, and how crazy were the foolish poissardes: these fishwomen, who had so many privileges under the monarchy, at every blow of the hammer yelled with delight; and behold, here was the Crab, Quatre Pattes, far away from her quarter, hoarse with screaming, a horrible edition of woman as she stood under the arch, careless of the falling fragments. On the edge of the more prudent crowd, an old man was guilty of some rash protest in the way of speech. François heard the cry, "À bas l'aristocrate! à la lanterne!" and saw the Crab leap on the man like some fierce insect, horribly agile, a thin gray tress down her back. Swift and terrible it was. In a moment he swung writhing from the chain of the street-lantern, fighting with vain hands to loosen the rope. A red-haired woman leaped up and caught his leg. There was laughter. The man above her hung limp. François did not laugh. He tried to get out of the crowd, away from this quivering horror. To do so was not easy. The crowd was noisy and turbulent, swaying to and fro, intent on mischief. As he moved he saw a small, stout man take, with some lack of skill, a purse from the side-pouch of a huge fishwoman. François, being close to the thief, saw him seized by the woman he had robbed. In the press, which was great, François slipped a hand into the thief's pocket, and took out the purse. Meanwhile there were again wild cries of "To the lantern!" "Up with him!" the woman lamenting her loss, and denouncing the man who had stolen. His life was like to be brief. Surrounded by these she-devils, he stood, white, shaking, and swearing he was innocent. The man's anguish of fear moved François. "Dame!" he cried, "search the man before you hang him! I say, search him!" While one of them began to act on his hint, François let the purse fall into the pocket of the original owner—an easy feat for a practised hand. "The man has it not. Look again in thy pouch, maman," he cried. "The man has it not; that is plain." When the dame of the market found her purse, she turned on François, amid the laughter of her friends. "Thou art a confederate. Thou didst put it back thyself." Indeed, things were like to go ill. The crowd was of a mind to hang some one. A dozen hands fell on him, while the man he had aided slipped away quietly. François shook off the women, and with foot and fist cleared a space, for he was of great strength of body. He would have earned but a short reprieve had he not seen the Crab. He called to her: "À moi! Quatre Pattes!" The ring of red-faced furies fell back for a moment before the rage and power of a man defending his life. Half dismayed, but furious, they shouted: "Hang him! rail him!" and called to the men to help them. Again François was hustled and struck as the crowd closed in on him. He struggled, and called to Toto, whom nothing so disturbed as to see a rude touch laid on his master. In an instant the dog was busy with the stout calves about him, biting, letting go, and biting again. The diversion was valuable, but brief; and soon Toto, who was not over-valiant, fled to his master, the crowd yelling: "Kill him! Hang him and the beast!" Once more François exerted his exceptional strength, crying, "Not while I live!" and catching up the dog under his arm. Then he heard the shrill voice of the Crab. "À moi!" he shouted, and struck right and left as Quatre Pattes, with her sticks, squirmed in under the great arms of the fishwomen.

"À moi!" she cried, "François!" With her sticks, and tongue of the vilest, she cleared a space as the venomous creatures fell back from one more hideous than themselves.

Meanwhile the accusing dame shook her purse at the Crab, crying, "He put it back; I felt him do it." But the rest laughed, and the Crab faced her with so fierce a look that she shrank away.

"Off with thee!" said the Crab to François; "thou wert near to the lantern."

"'T is a Jacobin of the best," she cried to the mob; "a friend of mine. You will get into trouble—you cursed fools!"

The crowd cheered her, and François, seizing the chance, cried, laughing, "Adieu, mesdames," and in a moment was out of the crowd and away. He turned as many corners as possible, and soon, feeling it safe to move more slowly, set down the dog and readjusted his dress.

A minute later he saw beside him the man he had saved. "Do not speak to me here," he said; "follow me at a distance." The man, still white and shaking, obeyed him. At the next turn, as François paused in doubt which way to go, he met Quatre Pattes.

"The devil nearly got thee, my little boy," she said; "but a smart thief is worth some trouble to save. Pay me for thy long neck, and quick, too." She was full eau-de-vie, and, as usual then, savage and reckless.

"More!" she cried—"more!" as he gave her a franc. "More, more! Ungrateful beast, thou art good to feed me, and for little else. More, more! I say, or I will call them after thee, and this time I shall have a good pull at the rope. More, more!" and she struck him with her stick. "Sacré, waif of hell! More! more!" she screamed. "And that fellow who helped thee! I have seen him; I know him."

François turned without a word, and ran as fast as his long legs would carry him. Two blocks away he was overtaken by the other thief. They pushed on in silence.

At last François, getting back his somewhat scattered wits, said: "We can talk now."

"Ah, I understand," said the other; "thou didst steal her purse from me, and put it back in her pouch."

"Yes; I took it just as they caught thee; then I let it fall into her pouch."

"I thank thee, monsieur. Dieu! I am all in a sweat. We are of a trade, I perceive. Why didst thou help me?"

"To keep it was a risk. My turn might have come next. I pitied thee, too."

"I shall never forget it—never."

François laughed. The fat man looked up at him. "Dame! but thou hast a queer face, and ears like wings. 'T is a fortune. Let us have a little wine and talk. I have a good idea."

"Presently," said François; "I like not the neighborhood."

Soon they found a guinguette, or low liquor-shop, in the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, and, feeling at last secure, had a long talk over a bottle of wine.

François learned that his new acquaintance was named Pierre Despard, and that he had, for the most part of his means of living, given up the business of relieving the rich of their purses. He explained that he did well as a conjurer, and had a booth near the Pont Neuf. He made clear to François that with his quick fingers, and a face which none could see and not laugh, he would be a desirable partner.

"Thou must learn to move those huge ears." Would he be his assistant? When times were bad they might profit by tempting chances in their old line of life.

François was just now as near to penitence as his nature permitted him to be, and his recent peril disposed him to listen. The more he reflected as Despard talked, the more he liked it. He ended by saying, "Yes"; and before the Crab had reached home he had taken away his slender store of garments, and, with Toto at his heels, found his way to the room of his new friend, in a little street which ran into the Rue Basse du Rempart, not far from the Madeleine. Thus began a mode of life which he found fresh and full of satisfaction.

The pair so strangely brought together took a room in the fifth story, and, with Toto, set up domestic life on a modest scale. It was much to François's contentment. He had what I may call a side taste for the respectable, and this new business seemed to him a decided rise in life. It was varied enough to amuse him; nor was it so conventionally commercial as to lack such adventure and incident as this wild young reprobate of the Cité had learned to like. The new business soon gave the partners more than enough to live upon. After their lodging and diet were provided for, Pierre Despard took two thirds of what was left, and put it away in a stocking, at first with some doubt as to his comrade, but soon with the trust which François was apt to inspire. From early morn until noon, Pierre taught François to do tricks with cards, to juggle with balls, and to tell fortunes by the lines of the hand. Toto was educated to carry a basket and collect sous, to stand on his head with a pipe in his mouth, and to pick out a card at a signal. The rest of the day was spent in the booth, where they rarely failed to be well paid. At evening there was a quiet café and dominoes, and a modest petit verre of brandy. Meanwhile the peasants burned châteaux, and Protestant and Catholic hanged one another in the pleasant South.