The prince executed the orders given with zealous accuracy; then observed, smilingly, to the grisette:
"Ah, Mlle. Rigolette, I should not like to be your _femme de chambre_; there is danger in it!"
"Yes, I know," answered Rigolette gaily; "there is great danger for me of having a pin run in by your awkwardness. But now," added she, after they had left the room, and carefully locked the door after them, "take my key; it is so large, I always expect it will burst my pocket; it is as large as a pistol," and here the light-hearted girl laughed merrily at her own conceit.
Rodolph accordingly "took charge" (that is the prescribed form of speech) of an enormous key, which might well have figured in one of those allegorical devices in which the vanquished are represented as humbly offering the keys of their lost cities to the conquerors.
Although Rodolph believed himself too much changed by years to run any risk of being recognised by Polidori, he still deemed it prudent to draw up the collar of his paletot as he pa.s.sed by the door of the apartments belonging to the quack, Bradamanti.
"Neighbour," said Rigolette, "don"t forget to tell M. Pipelet that you are about to send in some things which are to be carried at once up to your chamber."
"You are right, my good friend; let us step into the porter"s lodge for an instant."
M. Pipelet, with his everlasting bell-shaped hat on his head, dressed, as usual, in the accustomed green coat, and seated before a table covered with sc.r.a.ps of leather and fragments of boots and shoes, was occupied in fixing a new sole on a boot, his whole look and manner impressed with the same deeply meditative air which characterised his usual proceedings. Anastasie was just then absent from the lodge.
"Well, M. Pipelet," said Rigolette, "I hope you will be pleased to hear the good news. Thanks to my good neighbour here, the poor Morels have got out of trouble. La! when one thinks of that poor man being taken off to prison--oh, those bailiffs have no hearts!"
"Nor manners either, mademoiselle," rejoined M. Pipelet, in an angry tone, wrathfully brandishing the boot then in progress of repair, and into which he had inserted his left hand and arm. "No! I have no hesitation in declaring, in the face of all mankind, that they are a set of mannerless scoundrels. Why, taking advantage of the darkness of our stairs, they actually carried their indecent violence so far as to lay their audacious fingers upon the waist of my wife. When I first heard the cries of her insulted modesty, I could not restrain myself, and, spite of all efforts to restrain myself, I yielded to the natural impetuosity of my disposition. Yes, I will frankly confess, my first impulse was to remain perfectly motionless."
"But, I suppose, afterwards," said Rigolette, who had much ado to preserve a serious air, "afterwards, M. Pipelet, you pursued them, and bestowed the punishment they so well deserved?"
"I"ll tell you, mademoiselle," answered Pipelet, deliberately; "when these shameless ruffians pa.s.sed before my lodge, my blood boiled, and I could not prevent myself from hastily covering my face, that I might not be shocked by the sight of these luxurious malefactors; but, afterwards, I ceased to be astonished; for well I knew I might expect some sight or sound to shock my senses; full well I was prepared for some direful misfortune ere the day had pa.s.sed, for I dreamed last night of Cabrion."
Rigolette smiled, while the heavy groans which broke from the oppressed mind of the porter were mingled with blows of his hammer, as he vigorously applied it to the sole of the boot he was mending.
"You wisely chose the wisest part, my dear M. Pipelet, that of despising offences, and holding it beneath you to revenge them; but try to forget these ill-conducted bailiffs, and oblige me by doing me a great favour."
"Man is born to help his fellow man," drawled out Pipelet, in a melancholy and sententious tone; "and he is still further called upon so to do when a good and worthy gentleman, moreover, a lodger in one"s house, is concerned."
"What I have to request of you is to carry up to my apartments for me several things I am about to send in, and which are for the Morels."
"Make yourself easy upon that point, monsieur," replied Pipelet. "I will faithfully perform your wishes."
"And afterwards," said Rodolph, mournfully, "you must obtain a priest to watch by a little girl the Morels have lost in the night. Go and give the requisite notification of the death, and bespeak a suitable funeral."
"Make your mind easy, monsieur," replied Pipelet, more gravely even than before; "directly my wife returns, I will go to the mayor, the church, and the _traiteur"s_: to the church, for the soul of the dead; to the _traiteur"s_, for the body of the living," added M. Pipelet, philosophically and poetically. "Consider it done in both cases; my good sir, consider it done."
At the entrance to the alley, Rodolph and Rigolette encountered Anastasie returning from market with a huge basket of provisions.
"That"s right! That"s right!" cried the porteress, looking at the pair with a knowing and significant air; "there you go, arm in arm already.
To be sure, look and love, love and look. Young people will be young people, no doubt on"t. Me and Alfred was just the same. Whoever heard of a pretty girl without a beau? So, go along, my dears, and make yourselves happy while you can." Then, after gazing after them some minutes, the old woman disappeared in the depths of the alley, crying out, "Alfred, my old darling! Don"t worry yourself; "Stasie"s coming to bring you something nice,--oh, so nice!"
END OF VOLUME II.