"Yes; _oui, madame_. Ten dollah the month--_le mois_."
Intelligence suddenly returned. Madame made a beautiful, silent O with her mouth and two others with her eyes.
"Ah _non_! By munse? No, madame. Ah-h! impossybl"! By _wick_, yes; ten dollah de wick! Ah!"
She touched her bosom with the wide-spread fingers of one hand and threw them toward her hearers.
The room-hunters got away, yet not so quickly but they heard behind and above them her scornful laugh, addressed to the walls of the empty room.
A day or two later they secured an apartment, cheap, and--morally--decent; but otherwise--ah!
CHAPTER VII.
DISAPPEARANCE.
It was the year of a presidential campaign. The party that afterward rose to overwhelming power was, for the first time, able to put its candidate fairly abreast of his compet.i.tors. The South was all afire.
Rising up or sitting down, coming or going, week-day or Sabbath-day, eating or drinking, marrying or burying, the talk was all of slavery, abolition, and a disrupted country.
Dr. Sevier became totally absorbed in the issue. He was too unconventional a thinker ever to find himself in harmony with all the declarations of any party, and yet it was a necessity of his nature to be in the _melee_. He had his own array of facts, his own peculiar deductions; his own special charges of iniquity against this party and of criminal forbearance against that; his own startling political economy; his own theory of rights; his own interpretations of the Const.i.tution; his own threats and warnings; his own exhortations, and his own prophecies, of which one cannot say all have come true. But he poured them forth from the mighty heart of one who loved his country, and sat down with a sense of duty fulfilled and wiped his pale forehead while the band played a polka.
It hardly need be added that he proposed to dispense with politicians, or that, when "the boys" presently counted him into their party team for campaign haranguing, he let them clap the harness upon him and splashed along in the mud with an intention as pure as snow.
"Hurrah for"--
Whom it is no matter now. It was not Fremont. Buchanan won the race. Out went the lights, down came the platforms, rockets ceased to burst; it was of no use longer to "Wait for the wagon"; "Old Dan Tucker" got "out of the way," small boys were no longer fellow-citizens, dissolution was postponed, and men began to have an eye single to the getting of money.
A mercantile friend of Dr. Sevier had a vacant clerkship which it was necessary to fill. A bright recollection flashed across the Doctor"s memory.
"Narcisse!"
"Yesseh!"
"Go to Number 40 Custom-house street and inquire for Mr. Fledgeling; or, if he isn"t in, for Mrs. Fledge--humph! Richling, I mean; I"--
Narcisse laughed aloud.
"Ha-ha-ha! daz de way, sometime"! My hant she got a honcl"--he says, once "pon a time"--
"Never mind! Go at once!"
"All a-ight, seh!"
"Give him this card"--
"Yesseh!"
"These people"--
"Yesseh!"
"Well, wait till you get your errand, can"t you? These"--
"Yesseh!"
"These people want to see him."
"All a-ight, seh!"
Narcisse threw open and jerked off a worsted jacket, took his coat down from a peg, transferred a snowy handkerchief from the breast-pocket of the jacket to that of the coat, felt in his pantaloons to be sure that he had his match-case and cigarettes, changed his shoes, got his hat from a high nail by a little leap, and put it on a head as handsome as Apollo"s.
"Doctah Seveeah," he said, "in fact, I fine that a ve"y gen"lemany young man, that Mistoo Itchlin, weely, Doctah."
The Doctor murmured to himself from the letter he was writing.
"Well, _au "evoi"_, Doctah; I"m goin"."
Out in the corridor he turned and jerked his chin up and curled his lip, brought a match and cigarette together in the lee of his hollowed hand, took one first, fond draw, and went down the stairs as if they were on fire.
At Ca.n.a.l street he fell in with two n.o.ble fellows of his own circle, and the three went around by way of Exchange alley to get a gla.s.s of soda at McCloskey"s old down-town stand. His two friends were out of employment at the moment,--making him, consequently, the interesting figure in the trio as he inveighed against his master.
"Ah, phooh!" he said, indicating the end of his speech by dropping the stump of his cigarette into the sand on the floor and softly spitting upon it,--"_le_ Shylock _de la rue_ Carondelet!"--and then in English, not to lose the admiration of the Irish waiter:--
"He don"t want to haugment me! I din ha.s.s "im, because the "lection. But you juz wait till dat firce of Jannawerry!"
The waiter swathed the zinc counter, and inquired why Narcisse did not make his demands at the present moment.
"W"y I don"t ha.s.s "im now? Because w"en I ha.s.s "im he know" he"s got to _do_ it! You thing I"m goin" to kill myseff workin"?"
n.o.body said yes, and by and by he found himself alive in the house of Madame Zen.o.bie. The furniture was being sold at auction, and the house was crowded with all sorts and colors of men and women. A huge sideboard was up for sale as he entered, and the crier was crying:--
"Faw-ty-fi" dollah! faw-ty-fi" dollah, ladies an" gentymen! On"y faw-ty-fi" dollah fo" thad magniffyzan sidebode! _Quarante-cinque piastres, seulement, messieurs! Les_ k.n.o.bs _vaut bien cette prix_!
Gentymen, de k.n.o.bs is worse de money! Ladies, if you don" stop dat talkin", I will not sell one thing mo"! _Et quarante cinque piastres_--faw-ty-fi" dollah"--
"Fifty!" cried Narcisse, who had not owned that much at one time since his father was a constable; realizing which fact, he slipped away upstairs and found Madame Zen.o.bie half crazed at the slaughter of her a.s.sets.
She sat in a chair against the wall of the room the Richlings had occupied, a spectacle of agitated dejection. Here and there about the apartment, either motionless in chairs, or moving noiselessly about, and pulling and pushing softly this piece of furniture and that, were numerous vulture-like persons of either s.e.x, waiting the up-coming of the auctioneer. Narcisse approached her briskly.
"Well, Madame Zen.o.bie!"--he spoke in French--"is it you who lives here?
Don"t you remember me? What! No? You don"t remember how I used to steal figs from you?"
The vultures slowly turned their heads. Madame Zen.o.bie looked at him in a dazed way.
No, she did not remember. So many had robbed her--all her life.
"But you don"t look at me, Madame Zen.o.bie. Don"t you remember, for example, once pulling a little boy--as little as _that_--out of your fig-tree, and taking the half of a shingle, split lengthwise, in your hand, and his head under your arm,--swearing you would do it if you died for it,--and bending him across your knee,"--he began a vigorous but graceful movement of the right arm, which few members of our fallen race could fail to recognize,--"and you don"t remember me, my old friend?"