"The G.o.ds have given you understanding," said he, "which is better than book-keeping by double entry."
At the time I thought my master"s att.i.tude magnificent and I despised Mr. Pogson from the bottom of my heart. But since then I have wondered how the deuce the Lotus Club survived a month of Paragot"s management.
In after years when I questioned him, he said airily that he left all financial questions to Ballantyne, the old actor proprietor, who had grown infirm, and that he was president and not manager. Yet to my certain knowledge he paid wages to Mrs. Housekeeper, Cherubino and myself, and as for tradesmen"s bills they were strewn about Paragot"s bedchamber like the autumn leaves of Vallombrosa, in greater numbers than the articles of his attire. On the other hand, I have no recollection of moneys coming in. There must have been some loose unbusinesslike arrangement between Ballantyne and himself which most justifiably shocked the business instincts of Mr. Pogson. There I sympathise with the latter. But I must admit that he showed a want of tact in dealing with Paragot.
My master was in gay spirits during breakfast. When he had finished, he declared the meal to be the most enjoyable he had eaten in Tavistock Street. My insensate conceit regarded the statement as a tribute to my culinary skill and I glowed with pride. I informed him that my herring cookery was nothing to what I could do with sprats.
"My little Asticot," said he, filling his porcelain pipe, "I have to offer you my joint congratulation and commiseration. I congratulate you on your being no longer a scullion. I commiserate with you on the loss of your salary of eighteen pence a week. Your sensitive spirit would revolt against taking service under anyone of Mr. Mammon"s myrmidons, and even if it didn"t, I am sure he would not employ you. Like Caliban no longer will you "sc.r.a.pe trencher nor wash dish"--at least in the Lotus Club--for from this hour I dismiss you from its service."
He smoked silently in his wicker chair, giving me time to realise the sudden change in my fortunes. Then only did I understand. I saw myself for a desolate moment, cast motherless, rudderless on the wide world where art and scholars.h.i.+p met with contumely and undergrown youth was buffeted and despised. My gorgeous dreams were at an end. The blighting commonplace overspread my soul.
"What would you like to do, my little Asticot?" he asked.
I pulled myself together and looked at him heroically.
"I could be a butcher"s boy."
The corners of my mouth twitched. It was a shuddersome avocation, and the prospect of the companions.h.i.+p of other butcher boys who could not draw, did not know French, and had never heard of Joanna filled me with a horrible sense of doom.
Suddenly Paragot leaped up in his wild way to his feet and clapped me so heartily on the shoulder that I staggered.
"My son," cried he, "I have an inspiration. It is spring, and the hedgerows are greener than the pavement, and the high roads of Europe are wider than Tavistock Street. We will seek them to-day, Asticot _de mon coeur_; I"ll be Don Quixote and you"ll be my Sancho, and we"ll go again in quest of adventures." He laughed aloud, and shook me like a little rat. "_Cela te tape dans l"oeil, mon pet.i.t Asticot?_"
Without waiting for me to reply, he rushed to the ricketty washstand, poured out water from the broken ewer, and after was.h.i.+ng, began to dress in feverish haste, talking all the time. Used as I was to his suddenness my wits could not move fast enough to follow him.
"Then I needn"t be a butcher"s boy?" I said at last.
He paused in the act of drawing on a boot.
"Butcher"s boy? Do you want to be a butcher"s boy?"
"No, Master," said I fervently.
"Then what are you talking of?" He had evidently not heard my answer to his question. "I am going to educate you in the High School of the Earth, the University of the Universe, and to-morrow you shall see a cow and a dandelion. And before then you will be disastrously seasick."
"The sea!" I cried in delirious amazement. "We are going on the sea?
Where are we going?"
"To France, _pet.i.t imbecile_," he cried. "Why are you not getting ready to go there?"
I might have answered that I had no personal preparations to make; but feeling rebuked for idleness while he was so busy, I began to clear away the breakfast things. He stopped me.
"_Nom de Dieu_, we are not going to travel with cups and saucers!"
He dragged from the top of the cupboard an incredibly dirty carpet bag of huge dimensions and decayed antiquity, and bade me pack therein our belongings. The process was not a lengthy one; we had so few. When we had little more than half filled the bag with articles of attire and the toilette stuffed in pell-mell, we looked around for ballast.
"The books, Master," said I.
"We will take the immortal works of Maitre Francois Rabelais, and the dirty little edition of "David Copperfield." The remainder of the library we will sell in Holywell Street."
"And the violin?"
He picked up the maimed instrument and, after looking at it critically, threw it into a corner.
"For Pogson," said he.
When we had tied up the books with a piece of stout string providentially lying at the bottom of the cupboard, our preparations were complete. Paragot donned his cap and a storm-stained Inverness cape, grasped the carpet bag and looked round the room.
"_En route_," said he, and I followed with the books. We gained the street and left the Lotus Club behind us for ever.
What Mrs. Housekeeper said, what Cherubino said, what the members said when they found no Mr. Ulysses presiding at the supper table that evening, what Mr. Pogson said when he learned that his a.s.sailant had shaken the dust of the Lotus Club from off his feet and strolled into the wide world without giving him the opportunity of serving a summons for a.s.sault, I have never been able to discover. Nor have I learned who succeeded Paragot as president and occupied the palatial chamber of all the harmonies that was Paragot"s squalid attic. When, in after years, I returned to London the Lotus Club had pa.s.sed from human memory, and at the present day a perky set of office premises stands on its site. The morality of Paragot"s precipitate exodus I am not in a position to discuss. From his point of view the fact of having disliked the new proprietor from their first interview, and broken a fiddle over his head, rendered his position as president untenable. Paragot walked out.
After having sold the books for a few s.h.i.+llings in Holywell Street, we marched up Fleet Street into the City, and entered a stupendous, unimagined building which Paragot informed me was his bank. Elegant gentlemen behind the counter shovelled gold to and fro with the same casual indifference as I had seen grocers" a.s.sistants shovel tea. One of them, a gorgeous fellow wearing a white pique tie and a horse-shoe pin, paid such deference to Paragot that I went out prodigiously impressed by my master"s importance. I was convinced that he owned the establishment, and during the next quarter of an hour I could not speak to him for awe.
It was about two o"clock when we reached Victoria Station. There Paragot discovered, for the first time, that there was not a train till nine in the evening. It had not occurred to him that trains did not start for Paris at quarter of an hour intervals during the day.
"My son," said he, "now is the time to make practical use of our philosophy. Instead of heaping vain maledictions on the Railway Company, let us deposit our luggage in the cloak room and take a walk on the Thames Embankment."
We walked thither and sat on a vacant bench beside the Cleopatra"s Needle. It was a warm May afternoon. My young mind and body fired by the excitements of the day found rest in the sunny idleness. It was delicious to be here, instead of was.h.i.+ng up plates and dishes with Mrs.
Housekeeper. Paragot took off his old slouch hat, stretched himself easefully and sighed.
"I am anxious to get to Paris to consult Henri Quatre."
"Who is Henri Quatre, Master?" I asked.
"Henri Quatre is on the Pont Neuf. That is a French saying which means that Queen Anne is dead. He was a great King of France and his statue on horseback is in the middle of a great bridge across the Seine called the Pont Neuf. He is a great friend of mine. I will tell you a story. Once upon a time there lived in Paris a magnificent young man who thought himself a genius. He _was_ a genius, my little Asticot. A genius is a man who writes immortal books, paints immortal pictures, rears immortal buildings and commits immortal follies. Don"t be a genius, my son, it isn"t good for anybody. Well, this young man was clad in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. He also had valuable furniture.
One evening something happened to annoy him."
Paragot paused.
"What annoyed him?" I asked.
"A flaw in what he had conceived to be the scheme of the universe,"
replied my master. "It annoys many people. The young man being annoyed, cast the fruits of his genius into the fire, tore up his purple and fine linen and smashed his furniture with a Crusader"s mace which happened to be hanging by way of an ornament on the wall. It"s made of steel with a k.n.o.b full of spikes, and weighs about nine pounds. I know nothing like it for destroying a Louis Quinze table, or for knocking the works out of a clock. If you"re good, my son, you shall have one when you grow up."
I looked gratefully at him. Not content with his kindness to me then, he would be my benefactor still when I reached manhood.
"The young man then packed a valise full of necessaries and went out into the street. It was a rainy November evening. He walked along the quays through the lamp-lit drizzle till he came to the statue of Henri Quatre. The Pont Neuf was alive with traffic and the swiftly pa.s.sing lights of vehicles threw conflicting gleams over the wet statue. The gas-lamps flickered in the wind." Paragot flickered his long fingers dramatically, to ill.u.s.trate the gas-lamps. "On all sides rose vague ma.s.ses of building--the Louvre away beyond the bridge, the frowning ma.s.s of the Conciergerie--the towering turrets of Notre Dame--swelling like billows against the sky. Pale reflections came from the river. Do you see the picture, my little Asticot? And the young man clutched the railings that surround the plinth of the statue, and caught sight of the face of Henri Quatre, and Henri Quatre looked at him so kindly that he said: "_Mon bon roi_, you are of the South like myself: I am leaving Paris to go into the wide world, but I don"t know where in the wide world to go to." _And the King nodded his head and pointed to the Gare de Lyon._ And the young man took off his hat and said, "_Mon bon roi_, I thank you!" He went to the Gare de Lyon and found a train just starting for Italy. So he went to Italy. I have a great respect for Henri Quatre."
"And what happened to him then, Master?" I asked, after a breathless pause.
"He became a vagabond philosopher," replied Paragot, refilling his porcelain pipe.
No argument has ever been able to convince Paragot that the statue did not nod its head and point the way to Italy. For some years I myself believed it; but at last it became obvious that the flas.h.i.+ng gleams of light over the wet statue had made him the victim of a trick of the eyes. I think the only serious offence I ever gave Paragot was when I presented to him this solution of the mystery.
Varied discourse and a meal in a Strand eating-house filled up the hours till nine o"clock. And then I started for Wonderland with Paragot.
We stayed in Paris but two days. When I asked my master why our sojourn was not longer, he said something about the "bitter-sweet" of it, which I could not understand. I have only two clear memories of Paris. He took me to see Henri Quatre, and explained how the statue nodded and how the hand which held the reins lifted and pointed to the Gare de Lyon. What more conclusive proof of his veracity need I have than actual confrontation with Henri Quatre? The other scene fixed on my mind is a narrow dark street with tall houses on either side; an awning outside a humble cafe; a little table beneath it at which Paragot and myself were seated. I sipped luxuriously a celestial liquor which I have since learned was grenadine syrup and water; in front of Paragot was a curious opalescent milky fluid of which he drank great quant.i.ties during those two days and ever afterwards.