"Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!" quoth the knocker, and M. de la Rue looked up around at the windows opposite and noticed the handsome young Dutchman looking at him.
"Dutch!" said the manager softly, between his teeth.
"He is staring at me," said Kristian Koppig to himself;--"but then I am staring at him, which accounts for it."
A long pause, and then another long rapping.
"They want him to go away," thought Koppig.
"Knock hard!" suggested a street youngster, standing by.
"Rap, rap"--The manager had no sooner recommenced than several neighbors looked out of doors and windows.
"Very bad," thought our Dutchman; "somebody should make him go off. I wonder what they will do."
The manager stepped into the street, looked up at the closed window, returned to the knocker, and stood with it in his hand.
"They are all gone out, Monsieur," said the street-youngster.
"You lie!" said the cynosure of neighboring eyes.
"Ah!" thought Kristian Koppig; "I will go down and ask him"--Here his thoughts lost outline; he was only convinced that he had somewhat to say to him, and turned to go down stairs. In going he became a little vexed with himself because he could not help hurrying. He noticed, too, that his arm holding the stair-rail trembled in a silly way, whereas he was perfectly calm. Precisely as he reached the street-door the manager raised the knocker; but the latch clicked and the wicket was drawn slightly ajar.
Inside could just be descried Madame John. The manager bowed, smiled, talked, talked on, held money in his hand, bowed, smiled, talked on, flourished the money, smiled, bowed, talked on and plainly persisted in some intention to which Madame John was steadfastly opposed.
The window above, too,--it was Kristian Koppig who noticed that,--opened a wee bit, like the sh.e.l.l of a terrapin; Presently the manager lifted his foot and put forward an arm, as though he would enter the gate by pushing, but as quick as gunpowder it clapped--in his face!
You could hear the fleeing feet of Zalli pounding up the staircase.
As the panting mother re-entered her room, "See, Maman," said "t.i.te Poulette, peeping at the window, "the young gentleman from over the way has crossed!"
"Holy Mary bless him!" said the mother.
"I will go over," thought Kristian Koppig, "and ask him kindly if he is not making a mistake."
"What are they doing, dear?" asked the mother, with clasped hands.
"They are talking; the young man is tranquil, but "Sieur de la Rue is very angry," whispered the daughter; and just then--pang! came a sharp, keen sound rattling up the walls on either side of the narrow way, and "Aha!" and laughter and clapping of female hands from two or three windows.
"Oh! what a slap!" cried the girl, half in fright, half in glee, jerking herself back from the cas.e.m.e.nt simultaneously with the report. But the "ahas" and laughter, and clapping of feminine hands, which still continued, came from another cause. "t.i.te Poulette"s rapid action had struck the slender cord that held up an end of her hanging garden, and the whole rank of cigar-boxes slid from their place, turned gracefully over as they shot through the air, and emptied themselves plump upon the head of the slapped manager. Breathless, dirty, pale as whitewash, he gasped a threat to be heard from again, and, getting round the corner as quick as he could walk, left Kristian Koppig, standing motionless, the most astonished man in that street.
"Kristian Koppig, Kristian Koppig," said Greatheart to himself, slowly dragging up-stairs, "what a mischief you have done. One poor woman certainly to be robbed of her bitter wages, and another--so lovely!--put to the burning shame of being the subject of a street brawl! What will this silly neighborhood say? "Has the gentleman a heart as well as a hand?" "Is it jealousy?"" There he paused, afraid himself to answer the supposed query; and then--"Oh! Kristian Koppig, you have been such a dunce!" "And I cannot apologize to them. Who in this street would carry my note, and not wink and grin over it with low surmises? I cannot even make rest.i.tution. Money? They would not dare receive it. Oh! Kristian Koppig, why did you not mind your own business? Is she any thing to you?
Do you love her? _Of course not_! Oh!--such a dunce!"
The reader will eagerly admit that however faulty this young man"s course of reasoning, his conclusion was correct. For mark what he did.
He went to his room, which was already growing dark, shut his window, lighted his big Dutch lamp, and sat down to write. "Something _must_ be done," said he aloud, taking up his pen; "I will be calm and cool; I will be distant and brief; but--I shall have to be kind or I may offend.
Ah! I shall have to write in French; I forgot that; I write it so poorly, dunce that I am, when all my brothers and sisters speak it so well." He got out his French dictionary. Two hours slipped by. He made a new pen, washed and refilled his inkstand, mended his "abominable!"
chair, and after two hours more made another attempt, and another failure. "My head aches," said he, and lay down on his couch, the better to frame his phrases.
He was awakened by the Sabbath sunlight. The bells of the Cathedral and the Ursulines" chapel were ringing for high ma.s.s, and a mocking-bird, perching on a chimney-top above Madame John"s rooms, was carolling, whistling, mewing, chirping, screaming, and trilling with the ecstasy of a whole May in his throat. "Oh! sleepy Kristian Koppig," was the young man"s first thought, "--such a dunce!"
Madame John and daughter did not go to ma.s.s. The morning wore away, and their cas.e.m.e.nt remained closed. "They are offended," said Kristian Koppig, leaving the house, and wandering up to the little Protestant affair known as Christ Church.
"No, possibly they are not," he said, returning and finding the shutters thrown back.
By a sad accident, which mortified him extremely, he happened to see, late in the afternoon,--hardly conscious that he was looking across the street,--that Madame John was--dressing. Could it be that she was going to the _Salle de Conde_? He rushed to his table, and began to write.
He had guessed aright. The wages were too precious to be lost. The manager had written her a note. He begged to a.s.sure her that he was a gentleman of the clearest cut. If he had made a mistake the previous afternoon, he was glad no unfortunate result had followed except his having been a.s.saulted by a ruffian; that the _Danse du Shawl_ was promised in his advertis.e.m.e.nt, and he hoped Madame John (whose wages were in hand waiting for her) would not fail to a.s.sist as usual. Lastly, and delicately put, he expressed his conviction that Mademoiselle was wise and discreet in declining to entertain gentlemen at her home.
So, against much beseeching on the part of "t.i.te Poulette, Madame John was going to the ball-room. "Maybe I can discover what "Sieur de la Rue is planning against Monsieur over the way," she said, knowing certainly the slap would not be forgiven; and the daughter, though tremblingly, at once withdrew her objections.
The heavy young Dutchman, now thoroughly electrified, was writing like mad. He wrote and tore up, wrote and tore up, lighted his lamp, started again, and at last signed his name. A letter by a Dutchman in French!--what can be made of it in English? We will see:
"MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE:
"A stranger, seeking not to be acquainted, but seeing and admiring all days the goodness and high honor, begs to be pardoned of them for the mistakes, alas! of yesterday, and to make reparation and satisfaction in destroying the ornaments of the window, as well as the loss of compensation from Monsieur the manager, with the enclosed bill of the _Banque de la Louisiane_ for fifty dollars ($50). And, hoping they will seeing what he is meaning, remains, respectfully,
"KRISTIAN KOPPIG.
"P.S.--Madame must not go to the ball."
He must bear the missive himself. He must speak in French. What should the words be? A moment of study--he has it, and is off down the long three-story stairway. At the same moment Madame John stepped from the wicket, and glided off to the _Salle de Conde_, a trifle late.
"I shall see Madame John, of course," thought the young man, crushing a hope, and rattled the knocker. "t.i.te Poulette sprang up from praying for her mother"s safety. "What has she forgotten?" she asked herself, and hastened down. The wicket opened. The two innocents were stunned.
"Aw--aw"--said the pretty Dutchman, "aw,"--blurted out something in virgin Dutch, ... handed her the letter, and hurried down street.
"Alas! what have I done?" said the poor girl, bending over her candle, and bursting into tears that fell on the unopened letter. "And what shall I do! It may be wrong to open it--and worse not to." Like her s.e.x, she took the benefit of the doubt, and intensified her perplexity and misery by reading and misconstruing the all but unintelligible contents.
What then? Not only sobs and sighs, but moaning and beating of little fists together, and outcries of soul-felt agony stifled against the bedside, and temples pressed into knitted palms, because of one who "sought _not to be_ acquainted," but offered money--money!--in pity to a poor--shame on her for saying that!--a poor _nigresse_.
And now our self-confessed dolt turned back from a half-hour"s walk, concluding there might be an answer to his note. "Surely Madame John will appear this time." He knocked. The shutter stirred above, and something white came fluttering wildly down like a shot dove. It was his own letter containing the fifty-dollar bill. He bounded to the wicket, and softly but eagerly knocked again.
"Go away," said a trembling voice from above.
"Madame John?" said he; but the window closed, and he heard a step, the same step on the stair. Step, step, every step one step deeper into his heart. "t.i.te Poulette came to the closed door.
"What will you?" said the voice within.
"I--I--don"t wish to see you. I wish to see Madame John."
"I must pray Monsieur to go away. My mother is at the _Salle de Conde_."
"At the ball!" Kristian Koppig strayed off, repeating the words for want of definite thought. All at once it occurred to him that at the ball he could make Madame John"s acquaintance with impunity. "Was it courting sin to go?" By no means; he should, most likely, save a woman from trouble, and help the poor in their distress.
Behold Kristian Koppig standing on the floor of the _Salle de Conde_. A large hall, a blaze of lamps, a bewildering flutter of fans and floating robes, strains of music, columns of gay promenaders, a long row of turbaned mothers lining either wall, gentlemen of the portlier sort filling the recesses of the windows, whirling waltzers gliding here and there--smiles and grace, smiles and grace; all fair, orderly, elegant, bewitching. A young Creole"s laugh mayhap a little loud, and--truly there were many sword-canes. But neither grace nor foulness satisfied the eye of the zealous young Dutchman.
Suddenly a m.u.f.fled woman pa.s.sed him, leaning on a gentleman"s arm. It looked like--it must be, Madame John. Speak quick, Kristian Koppig; do not stop to notice the man!