She looked up into the handsome face with a faint smile of affirmation.
He laughed with delight.
"The shingle was _that_ wide. Ah! Madame Zen.o.bie, you did it well!" He softly smote the memorable spot, first with one hand and then with the other, shrinking forward spasmodically with each contact, and throwing utter woe into his countenance. The general company smiled. He suddenly put on great seriousness.
"Madame Zen.o.bie, I hope your furniture is selling well?" He still spoke in French.
She cast her eyes upward pleadingly, caught her breath, threw the back of her hand against her temple, and dashed it again to her lap, shaking her head.
Narcisse was sorry.
"I have been doing what I could for you, downstairs,--running up the prices of things. I wish I could stay to do more, for the sake of old times. I came to see Mr. Richling, Madame Zen.o.bie; is he in? Dr. Sevier wants him."
Richling? Why, the Richlings did not live there! The Doctor must know it. Why should she be made responsible for this mistake? It was his oversight. They had moved long ago. Dr. Sevier had seen them looking for apartments. Where did they live now? Ah, me! _she_ could not tell. Did Mr. Richling owe the Doctor something?
"Owe? Certainly not. The Doctor--on the contrary"--
Ah! well, indeed, she didn"t know where they lived, it is true; but the fact was, Mr. Richling happened to be there just then!--_a-c"t"eure_! He had come to get a few trifles left by his madame.
Narcisse made instant search. Richling was not on the upper floor. He stepped to the landing and looked down. There he went!
"Mistoo "Itchlin!"
Richling failed to hear. Sharper ears might have served him better. He pa.s.sed out by the street door. Narcisse stopped the auction by the noise he made coming downstairs after him. He had some trouble with the front door,--lost time there, but got out.
Richling was turning a corner. Narcisse ran there and looked; looked up--looked down--looked into every store and shop on either side of the way clear back to Ca.n.a.l street; crossed it, went back to the Doctor"s office, and reported. If he omitted such details as having seen and then lost sight of the man he sought, it may have been in part from the Doctor"s indisposition to give him speaking license. The conclusion was simple: the Richlings could not be found.
The months of winter pa.s.sed. No sign of them.
"They"ve gone back home," the Doctor often said to himself. How much better that was than to stay where they had made a mistake in venturing, and become the nurslings of patronizing strangers! He gave his admiration free play, now that they were quite gone. True courage that Richling had--courage to retreat when retreat is best! And his wife--ah!
what a reminder of--hush, memory!
"Yes, they must have gone home!" The Doctor spoke very positively, because, after all, he was haunted by doubt.
One spring morning he uttered a soft exclamation as he glanced at his office-slate. The first notice on it read:--
Please call as soon as you can at number 292 St. Mary street, corner of Prytania. Lower corner--opposite the asylum.
JOHN RICHLING.
The place was far up in the newer part of the American quarter. The signature had the appearance as if the writer had begun to write some other name, and had changed it to Richling.
CHAPTER VIII.
A QUESTION OF BOOK-KEEPING.
A day or two after Narcisse had gone looking for Richling at the house of Madame Zen.o.bie, he might have found him, had he known where to search, in Tchoupitoulas street.
Whoever remembers that thoroughfare as it was in those days, when the commodious "cotton-float" had not quite yet come into use, and Poydras and other streets did not so vie with Tchoupitoulas in importance as they do now, will recall a scene of commercial hurly-burly that inspired much pardonable vanity in the breast of the utilitarian citizen. Drays, drays, drays! Not the light New York things; but big, heavy, solid affairs, many of them drawn by two tall mules harnessed tandem. Drays by threes and by dozens, drays in opposing phalanxes, drays in long processions, drays with all imaginable kinds of burden; cotton in bales, piled as high as the omnibuses; leaf tobacco in huge hogsheads; cases of linens and silks; stacks of raw-hides; crates of cabbages; bales of prints and of hay; interlocked heaps of blue and red ploughs; bags of coffee, and spices, and corn; bales of bagging; barrels, casks, and tierces; whisky, pork, onions, oats, bacon, garlic, mola.s.ses, and other delicacies; rice, sugar,--what was there not? Wines of France and Spain in pipes, in baskets, in hampers, in octaves; queensware from England; cheeses, like cart-wheels, from Switzerland; almonds, lemons, raisins, olives, boxes of citron, casks of chains; specie from Vera Cruz; cries of drivers, cracking of whips, rumble of wheels, tremble of earth, frequent gorge and stoppage. It seemed an idle tale to say that any one could be lacking bread and raiment. "We are a great city," said the patient foot-pa.s.sengers, waiting long on street corners for opportunity to cross the way.
On one of these corners paused Richling. He had not found employment, but you could not read that in his face; as well as he knew himself, he had come forward into the world prepared amiably and patiently to be, to do, to suffer anything, provided it was not wrong or ignominious. He did not see that even this is not enough in this rough world; nothing had yet taught him that one must often gently suffer rudeness and wrong. As to what const.i.tutes ignominy he had a very young man"s--and, shall we add? a very American--idea. He could not have believed, had he been told, how many establishments he had pa.s.sed by, omitting to apply in them for employment. He little dreamed he had been too select. He had entered not into any house of the Samaritans, to use a figure; much less, to speak literally, had he gone to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Mary, hiding away in uncomfortable quarters a short stone"s throw from Madame Zen.o.bie"s, little imagined that, in her broad irony about his not hunting for employment, there was really a tiny seed of truth. She felt sure that two or three persons who had seemed about to employ him had failed to do so because they detected the defect in his hearing, and in one or two cases she was right.
Other persons paused on the same corner where Richling stood, under the same momentary embarra.s.sment. One man, especially busy-looking, drew very near him. And then and there occurred this simple accident,--that at last he came in contact with the man who had work to give him. This person good-humoredly offered an impatient comment on their enforced delay. Richling answered in sympathetic spirit, and the first speaker responded with a question:--
"Stranger in the city?"
"Yes."
"Buying goods for up-country?"
It was a pleasant feature of New Orleans life that sociability to strangers on the street was not the exclusive prerogative of gamblers"
decoys.
"No; I"m looking for employment."
"Aha!" said the man, and moved away a little. But in a moment Richling, becoming aware that his questioner was glancing all over him with critical scrutiny, turned, and the man spoke.
"D"you keep books?"
Just then a way opened among the vehicles; and the man, young and muscular, darted into it, and Richling followed.
"I _can_ keep books," he said, as they reached the farther curb-stone.
The man seized him by the arm.
"D"you see that pile of codfish and herring where that tall man is at work yonder with a marking-pot and brush? Well, just beyond there is a boarding-house, and then a hardware store; you can hear them throwing down sheets of iron. Here; you can see the sign. See? Well, the next is my store. Go in there--upstairs into the office--and wait till I come."
Richling bowed and went. In the office he sat down and waited what seemed a very long time. Could he have misunderstood? For the man did not come. There was a person sitting at a desk on the farther side of the office, writing, who had not lifted his head from first to last, Richling said:--
"Can you tell me when the proprietor will be in?"
The writer"s eyes rose, and dropped again upon his writing.
"What do you want with him?"
"He asked me to wait here for him."
"Better wait, then."
Just then in came the merchant. Richling rose, and he uttered a rude exclamation:--
"_I_ forgot you completely! Where did you say you kept books at, last?"
"I"ve not kept anybody"s books yet, but I can do it."