Fabio, a little mite of seven, with eyes black and sparkling as those of a dormouse, had just seen Tantaine in the doorway and pointed him out to the professor.
Poluche turned quickly round and found himself face to face with Tantaine, who had come quickly forward, his hat in his hand.
Had the professor seen an apparition, he could not have started more violently, for he did not like strangers.
"What do you want?" asked he.
"Rea.s.sure yourself, sir," said Tantaine, after having for a few seconds enjoyed his evident terror; "I am the intimate friend of the gentleman who employs you, and have come here to discuss an important matter of business with him."
Poluche breathed more freely.
"Take a chair, sir," said he, offering the only one in the room. "My master will soon be here."
But Daddy Tantaine refused the offer, saying that he did not wish to intrude, but would wait until the lesson was over.
"I have nearly finished," remarked Poluche; "it is almost time to let these scamps have their soup."
Then turning to his pupils, who had not dared to stir a limb, he said,--
"There, that is enough for to-day; you can go."
The children did not hesitate for a moment, but tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get away, hoping, perhaps, that he might omit to execute certain threats that he had held out during the lesson. The hope was a vain one, for the equitable Poluche went to the head of the stairs and called out in a loud voice,--
"Mother Butor, you will give no soup to Monte and put Ravillet on half allowance."
Tantaine was much interested, for the scene was an entirely new one.
The professor raised his eyes to heaven.
"Would," said he, "that I might teach them the divine science as I would wish; but the master would not allow me; indeed, he would dismiss me if I attempted to do so."
"I do not understand you."
"Let me explain to you. You know that there are certain old women who, for a consideration, will train a linnet or a bullfinch to whistle any air?"
Tantaine, with all humility, confessed his ignorance of these matters.
"Well," said the professor, "the only difference between those old women and myself is, that they teach birds and I boys; and I know which I had rather do."
Tantaine pointed to the whip.
"And how about this?" asked he.
Poluche shrugged his shoulders.
"Put yourself in my place for a little while," remarked he. "You see my master brings me all sorts of boys, and I have to cram music into them in the briefest period possible. Of course the child revolts, and I thrash him; but do not think he cares for this; the young imps thrive on blows. The only way that I can touch them is through their stomachs. I stop a quarter, a half, and sometimes the whole of their dinner. That fetches them, and you have no idea how a little starvation brings them on in music."
Daddy Tantaine felt a cold shiver creep over him as he listened to this frank exposition of the professor"s mode of action.
"You can now understand," remarked the professor, "how some airs become popular in Paris. I have forty pupils all trying the same thing. I am drilling them now in the _Marguerite_, and in a little time you will have nothing else in the streets."
Poluche was proceeding to give Tantaine some further information, when a step was heard upon the stairs, and the professor remarked,--
"Here is the master; he never comes up here, because he is afraid of the stairs. You had better go down to him."
CHAPTER XXII.
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.
The ex-cook appeared before Tantaine in all his appalling vulgarity as the latter descended the stairs. The proprietor of the musical academy was a stout, red-faced man, with an insolent mouth and a cynical eye.
He was gorgeously dressed, and wore a profusion of jewelry. He was much startled at seeing Tantaine, whom he knew to be the redoubtable Mascarin"s right-hand man. "A thousand thunders!" muttered he. "If these people have sent him here for me, I must take care what I am about," and with a friendly smile he extended his hand to Tantaine.
"Glad to see you," said he. "Now, what can I do for you, for I hope you have come to ask me to do something?"
"The veriest trifle," returned Tantaine.
"I am sorry that it is not something of importance, for I have the greatest respect for M. Mascarin."
This conversation had taken place in the window, and was interrupted every moment by the shouts and laughter of the children; but beneath these sounds of merriment came an occasional bitter wail of lamentation.
"What is that?" inquired Perpignan, in a voice of thunder. "Who presumes to be unhappy in this establishment?"
"It is two of the lads that I have put on half rations," returned Poluche. "I"ll make them learn somehow or----"
A dark frown on the master"s face arrested his further speech. "What do I hear?" roared Perpignan. "Do you dare, under my roof, to deprive those poor children of an ounce of food? It is scandalous, I may say, infamous on your part, M. Poluche."
"But, sir," faltered the professor, "have you not told me hundreds of times--"
"That you were an idiot, and would never be anything better. Go and tell Mother Butor to give these poor children their dinner."
Repressing further manifestations of rage, Perpignan took Tantaine by the arm and led him into a little side-room, which he dignified by the name of his office. There was nothing in it but three chairs, a common deal table, and a few shelves containing ledgers. "You have come on business, I presume," remarked Perpignan.
Tantaine nodded, and the two men seated themselves at the table, gazing keenly into each other"s eyes, as though to read the thoughts that moved in the busy brain.
"How did you find out my little establishment down here?" asked Perpignan.
"By a mere chance," remarked Tantaine carelessly. "I go about a good deal, and hear many things. For instance, you have taken every precaution here, and though you are really the proprietor, yet the husband of your cook and housekeeper, Butor, is supposed to be the owner of the house--at least it stands in his name. Now, if anything untoward happened, you would vanish, and only Butor would remain a prey for the police."
Tantaine paused for a moment, and then slowly added, "Such tactics usually succeed unless a man has some secret enemy, who would take advantage of his knowledge, to do him an injury by obtaining irrefragable proofs of his complicity."
The ex-cook easily perceived the threat that was hidden under these words. "They know something," muttered he, "and I must find out what it is."
"If a man has a clear conscience," said he aloud, "he is all right. I have nothing to conceal, and therefore nothing to fear. You have now seen my establishment; what do you think of it?"
"It seems to me a very well-conducted one."
"It may have occurred to you that a factory at Roubaix might have been a better investment, but I had not the capital to begin with."