SLAVES OF PARIS (Complete Edition). Emile Gaboriau
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time while I was a-waiting. I don’t like a-being idle and I have copped seven browns.”
“Toto Chupin,” said the old man, with great severity, “you will certainly come to a bad end. But come, give your report. What have you seen?”
During this conversation they were walking slowly along the quay, and had passed the Hotel Dieu.
“Well, guv’nor,” replied the young rogue, “I just saw what you said I should. At four sharp, a carriage drove into the Place, and pulled up bang opposite the wigmaker’s. Dash me, if it weren’t a swell turnout!—horse, coachman, and all, in real slap-up style. It waited so long that I thought it had taken root there.”
“Come, get on! Was there any one inside?”
“I should think there was! I twigged him at once, by the description you gave me. I never see a cove togged out as he was,—tall hat, light sit-down-upons, and a short coat—wasn’t it cut short! but in really bang-up style. To be certain, I went right up to him, for it was getting dark, and had a good look at him. He had got out of the trap, and was marching up and down the pavement, with an unlighted cigar stuck in his mouth. I took a match, and said, ‘Have a light, my noble swell?’ and hanged if he didn’t give me ten centimes! My! ain’t he ugly!—short, shrivelled up, and knock-kneed, with a glass in his eye, and altogether precious like a monkey.”
Daddy Tantaine began to grow impatient with all this rigmarole. “Come, tell me what took place,” said he angrily.
“Precious little. The young swell didn’t seem to care about dirtying his trotter-cases; he kept slashing about with his cane, and staring at all the gals. What an ass that masher is! Wouldn’t I have liked to have punched his head! If you ever want to hide him, daddy, please think of yours truly. He wouldn’t stand up to me for five minutes.”
“Go on, my lad; go on.”
“Well, we had waited half an hour, when all at once a woman came sharp round the corner, and stops before the masher. Wasn’t she a fine gal! and hadn’t she a pair of sparklers! but she had awfully seedy togs on. But they spoke in whispers.”
“So you did not hear what they said?”
“Do you take me for a flat? The gal said, ‘Do you understand?—to-morrow.’ Then the swell chap, says he, ‘Do you promise?’ and the gal, she answers back, ‘Yes, at noon.’ Then they parted. She went off to the Rue Hachette, and the masher tumbled into his wheelbox. The jarvey cracked his whip, and off they went in a brace of shakes. Now hand over them five francs.”
Daddy Tantaine did not seem surprised at this request, and he gave over the money to the young loafer, with the words, “When I promise, I pay down on the nail; but remember Toto Chupin, you’ll come to grief one day. Good-night. Our ways lie in different directions.”
The old man, however, lingered until he had seen the lad go off toward the Jardin des Plantes, and then, turning round, went back by the way he had come. “I have not lost my day,” murmured he. “All the improbabilities have turned out certainties, and matters are going straight. Won’t Flavia be awfully pleased?”
Chapter II.
A Registry Office
The establishment of the influential friend of Daddy Tantaine was situated in the Rue Montorgeuil, not far from the Passage de la Reine Hortense. M. B. Mascarin has a registry office for the engagement of both male and female servants. Two boards fastened upon each side of the door announce the hours of opening and closing, and give a list of those whose names are on the books; they further inform the public that the establishment was founded in 1844, and is still in the same hands. It was the long existence of M. Mascarin in a business which is usually very short-lived that had obtained for him a great amount of confidence, not only in the quarter in which he resided, but throughout the whole of Paris. Employers say that he sends them the best of servants, and the domestics in their turn assert that he only despatches them to good places. But M. Mascarin has still further claims on the public esteem; for it was he who, in 1845, founded and carried out a project which had for its aim and end the securing of a shelter for servants out of place. The better to carry out this, Mascarin took a partner, and gave him the charge of a furnished house close to the office. Worthy as these projects were, Mascarin contrived to draw considerable profit from them, and was the owner of the house before which, in the noon of the day following the events we have described, Paul Violaine might have been seen standing. The five hundred francs of old Tantaine, or at any rate a portion of them, had been well spent, and his clothes did credit to his own taste and the skill of his tailor. Indeed, in his fine feathers he looked so handsome, that many women turned to gaze after him. He however took but little notice of this, for he was too full of anxiety, having grave doubts as to the power of the man whom Tantaine had asserted could, if he liked, make his fortune. “A registry office!” muttered he scornfully. “Is he going to propose a berth of a hundred francs a month to me?” He was much agitated at the thoughts of the impending interview, and, before entering the house, gazed upon its exterior with great interest. The house much resembled its neighbors. The entrances to the Registry Office and the Servants’ Home were in the courtyard, at the arched entrance to which stood a vendor of roast chestnuts.
“There is no use in remaining here,” said Paul. Summoning, therefore, all his resolution, he crossed the courtyard, and, ascending a flight of stairs, paused before a door upon which “OFFICE” was written. “Come in!” responded at once to his knock. He pushed open the door, and entered a room, which closely resembled all other similar offices. There were seats all round the room, polished by frequent use. At the end was a sort of compartment shut in by a green baize curtain, jestingly termed “the Confessional” by the frequenters of the office. Between the windows was a tin plate, with the words, “All fees to be paid in advance,” in large letters upon it. In one corner a gentleman was seated at a writing table, who, as he made entries in a ledger, was talking to a woman who stood beside him.
“M. Mascarin?” asked Paul hesitatingly.
“What do you want with him?” asked the man, without looking up from his work. “Do you wish to enter your name? We have now vacancies for three bookkeepers, a cashier, a confidential clerk—six other good situations. Can you give good references?”
These words seemed to be uttered by rote.
“I beg your pardon,” returned Paul; “but I should like to see M. Mascarin. One of his friends sent me here.”
This statement evidently impressed the official, and he replied almost politely, “M. Mascarin is much occupied at present, sir; but he will soon be disengaged. Pray be seated.”
Paul sat down on a bench, and examined the man who had just spoken with some curiosity. M. Mascarin’s partner was a tall and athletic man, evidently enjoying the best of health, and wearing a large moustache elaborately waxed and pointed. His whole appearance betokened the old soldier. He had, so he asserted, served in the cavalry, and it was there that he had acquired the soubriquet by which he was known—Beaumarchef, his original name being David. He was about forty-five, but was still considered a very good-looking fellow. The entries that he was making in the ledger did not prevent him from keeping up a conversation with the woman standing by him. The woman, who seemed to be a cross between a cook and a market-woman, might be described as a thoroughly jovial soul. She seasoned her conversation with pinches of snuff, and spoke with a strong Alsatian brogue.
“Now, look here,” said Beaumarchef; “do you really mean to say that you want a place?”
“I do that.”
“You said that six months ago. We got you a splendid one, and three days afterward you chucked up the whole concern.”
“And why shouldn’t I? There was no need to work then; but now it is another pair of shoes, for I have spent nearly all I had saved.”
Beaumarchef