"And portrait of mademoiselle!" said Mme. Alexandre, and Mme. De l"Isle smiled a.s.sent.
Yet a disappointed silence followed, presently broken by the perfumer: "All the same, what is the matter to make it a pamphlet?"
Beloiseau objected: "No, then you compete aggains" those magazine".
But if you permit one of those magazine" to buy it you get the advantage of all the picture" in the whole magazine."
"Ah!" several demurred, "and let that magazine swallow whole all those profit" of all those advertis.e.m.e.nt"!"
Chester spoke: "I have an idea--" But others had ideas and the floor besides.
Castanado lifted a hand: "Frien"--our counsel."
Counsel tried again: "I have a conviction that we should first offer this to a magazine--through--yes, of course, through some influential friend. If one doesn"t want it another may----"
Chorus: "Ho! they will all want it! That was not written laz" night!
"Tis fivty year" old; they cannot rif-use that!"
"However," Chester persisted, "if they should--if all should--I"d advise----"
"Frien"s," Castanado pleaded, "let us hear."
"I should advise that we gather together as many such old narratives as we can find, especially such as can be related to one another----"
"They need not be ril-ated!" cried Dubroca. "_We_ are not ril-ated, and yet see! Ril-ated? where you are goin" to find them, ril-ated?"
"Royal Street!" Scipion retorted. "Royal Street is pave" with old narration"!"
"Already," said Castanado, "we chanze to have three or four.
Mademoiselle has that story of her _grand"mere_, and Mr. Chezter he has--sir, you"ll not care if I tell that?--Mr. Chezter has _the sequal to that_, and written by his uncle!"
"Yes," Chester put in, "but Ovide Landry finds it was printed years ago."
"Proof!" proclaimed Mme. Alexandre, "proof that "tis good to print ag-ain! The people that read that before, they are mozely dead."
"At the same time," Chester responded, rising and addressing the chair, his hostess, "because that is a sequel to the _grand"-mere"s_ story, and because _this_--this West Indian episode--is not a sequel and has no sequel, and particularly because we ought to let mademoiselle be first to judge whether my uncle"s _memorandum_ is fit company for her two stories, I propose, I say, that before we read this West Indian thing we read my uncle"s _memorandum_, and that we send and beg her to come and hear it with us. It"s in my pocket."
Patter, patter, patter, went a dozen hands.
"Marcel," the hostess cried in French, "go!"
"I will go with you," Mme. Alexandra proposed, "she will never come without me."
"Tis but a step," said Mme. De l"Isle, "the three of us will go together." They went.
Those who waited talked on of their city"s true stories. The vastest and most monstrous war in human history was smoking and roaring just across the Atlantic, and in it they had racial, national, personal interests; but for the moment they left all that aside. "One troub","
Dubroca said, ""tis that all those three stone"--and all I can rim-ember--even that story of M"sieu" Smith about the fall of the city--1862--they all got in them _somewhere_, alas! the n.i.g.g.e.r. The _publique_ they are not any longer pretty easy to fascinate on that subjec"."
"Ho!" Beloiseau rejoined, "_au contraire_, he"s an advantage! If only you keep him for the back-_ground_; biccause in the mind of every-_body_ tha"z where he is, and that way he has the advantage to ril-ate those storie" together and----"
Mademoiselle came. Her arrival, reception, installation near the hostess and opposite Chester are good enough untold. If elsewhere in that wide city a like number ever settled down to listen to an untamed writer"s ma.n.u.script in as sweet content with one another _their_ story ought to be printed. "Well," Mme. Castanado chanted, "commence." And Chester read:
X
THE ANGEL OF THE LORD
When I was twenty-four I lived at the small capital of my native Southern State.
My parental home was three counties distant. My father, a slaveholding planter, was a n.o.ble gentleman, whom I loved as he loved me. But we could not endure each other"s politics and I was trying to exist on my professional fees, in the law office of one of our ex-governors. I was kindly tolerated by everybody about me but had neglected social relations, being a black sheep on every hot question of the time--1860.
In the world"s largest matters my Southern mother had the sanest judgment I ever knew, and it was from her I had absorbed my notions on slavery. It was at least as much in sympathy for the white man as for the black that she deprecated it, yet she pointed out to me how idle it was to fancy that any mere manumission of our slaves would cure us of a whole philosophy of wealth, society, and government as inbred as it was antiquated.
One evening my two fellow boarders--state-house clerks, good boys--so glaringly left me out of their plan for a whole day"s fishing on the morrow, that I smarted. I was so short of money that I could not have supplied my own tackle, but no one knew that, and it stung me to be slighted by two chaps I liked so well. I determined to be revenged in some playful way that would make us better friends, and as I walked down-street next morning I hit out a scheme. They had been gone since daybreak and I was on my way to see a client who kept a livery-stable.
Now, in college, where I had intended to leave all silly tricks behind me, my most taking pranks had been played in female disguise; for at twenty-four I was as beardless as a child.
My errand to the stableman was to collect some part of my fee in a suit I had won for him. But I got not a cent, for as to cash his victory had been a barren one. However, a part of his booty was an old coach built when carriage people made long journeys in their own equipages.
This he would "keep on sale for me free of charge," etc.
"Which means you"ll never sell it," I said.
Oh, he could sell it if any man could!
I smiled. Could he lend me, I asked, for half a day or so, a good span of horses? He could.
"Then hitch up the coach and let me try it."
He bristled: "What are you going to find out by "trying" it? What d"you "llow it"ll do? Blow up? Who"ll drive it? _I_ can"t spare any one."
I was glad. Any man of his would know me, and my scheme called for a stranger to both me and the coach. I must find such a person.
"If I send a driver," I said, "you"ll lend me the span, won"t you?"
"Oh, yes."
But all at once I decided to do without the whole rig. I went back to my room and had an hour"s enjoyment making myself up as a lady dressed for travel. For a woman I was of just a fine stature. In years I looked a refined forty. My hands were not too big for black lace mitts, my bosom was a success, and my feet, in thin morocco, were out of sight and n.o.body"s business. A little oil and a burnt match darkened my eyebrows, my wig sat straight, under the weest of bonnets I wore a chignon, behind one ear a bunch of curls, and, unseen at one side of a modest bustle, my revolver. Though I say it myself, I managed my crinoline with grace.
["That was pritty co"rect," the costumer remarked. "Humph!" said Chester. The three mesdames exchanged glances, and the reading went on.]
XI
Leaving a note on her door to tell our landlady that business would keep me away an indefinite time, I got out at the front gate un.o.bserved, and with a sweet dignity that charmed me with myself walked away under a bewitching parasol, well veiled.
I knew where to find my two sportsmen. A few hundred paces put the town and an open field at my back; a few more down a bushy lane brought me where a dense wood overhung both sides of the narrow way, and the damp air was full of the smell of penny-royal and of creek sands. From here I proposed to saunter down through the woods to the creek, locate my fishermen, and draw them my way by cries of distress.