Rewards and Fairies Part 26

'"It is!" I said, and up the steps I went with my fiddle, and run after the carriage calling, "Abbe, abbe!"

'A soldier knocked the wind out of me with the back of his sword, but I had sense to keep on following till the carriage stopped--and there just was a crowd round the house-door! I must have been half-crazy else I wouldn't have struck up "_Si le Roi m'avait donne, Paris la grande ville!_" I thought it might remind him.

'"That is a good omen!" he says to Boney sitting all hunched up; and he looks straight at me.

'"Abbe--oh, abbe!" I says. "Don't you remember Toby and Hundred and Eighteen Second Street?"

'He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger to the guard at the door while the carriage steps were let down, and I skipped into the house, and they slammed the door in the crowd's face.

'"You go there," says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty room, where I catched my first breath since I'd left the barge. Presently I heard plates rattling next door--there were only folding doors between--and a cork drawn. "I tell you," some one shouts with his mouth full, "it was all that sulky a.s.s Sieyes' fault. Only my speech to the Five Hundred saved the situation."

'"Did it save your coat?" says Talleyrand. "I hear they tore it when they threw you out. Don't gasconade to me. You may be in the road of victory, but you aren't there yet."

'Then I guessed t'other man was Boney. He stamped about and swore at Talleyrand.

'"You forget yourself, Consul," says Talleyrand, "or rather you remember yourself--Corsican."

'"Pig!" says Boney, and worse.

'"Emperor!" says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it sounded worst of all. Some one must have backed against the folding doors, for they flew open and showed me in the middle of the room. Boney whipped out his pistol before I could stand up. "General," says Talleyrand to him, "this gentleman has a habit of catching us canaille _en deshabille_. Put that thing down."

'Boney laid it on the table, so I guessed which was master. Talleyrand takes my hand--"Charmed to see you again, Candide," he says. "How is the adorable Dr. Pangloss and the n.o.ble Huron?"

'"They were doing very well when I left," I said. "But I'm not."

'"Do _you_ sell b.u.t.tons now?" he says, and fills me a gla.s.s of wine off the table.

'"Madeira," says he. "Not so good as some I have drunk."

'"You mountebank!" Boney roars. "Turn that out." (He didn't even say "man," but Talleyrand, being gentle born, just went on.)

'"Pheasant is not so good as pork," he says. "You will find some at that table if you will do me the honour to sit down. Pa.s.s him a clean plate, General." And, as true as I'm here, Boney slid a plate along just like a sulky child. He was a lanky-haired, yellow-skinned little man, as nervous as a cat--and as dangerous. I could feel that.

'"And now," said Talleyrand, crossing his game leg over his sound one, "will you tell me your story?"

'I was in a fl.u.s.ter, but I told him nearly everything from the time he left me the five hundred dollars in Philadelphia, up to my losing s.h.i.+p and cargo at Le Havre. Boney began by listening, but after a bit he dropped into his own thoughts and looked at the crowd sideways through the front-room curtains. Talleyrand called to him when I'd done.

'"Eh? What we need now," says Boney, "is peace for the next three or four years."

'"Quite so," says Talleyrand. "Meantime I want the Consul's order to the Prize Court at Le Havre to restore my friend here his s.h.i.+p."

'"Nonsense!" says Boney. "Give away an oak-built brig of two hundred and seven tons for sentiment? Certainly not! She must be armed into my Navy with ten--no, fourteen twelve-pounders and two long fours. Is she strong enough to bear a long twelve forward?"

'Now I could ha' sworn he'd paid no heed to my talk, but that wonderful head-piece of his seemingly skimmed off every word of it that was useful to him.

'"Ah, General!" says Talleyrand. "You are a magician--a magician without morals. But the brig is undoubtedly American, and we don't want to offend them more than we have."

'"Need anybody talk about the affair?" he says. He didn't look at me, but I knew what was in his mind--just cold murder because I worried him; and he'd order it as easy as ordering his carriage.

'"You can't stop 'em," I said. "There's twenty-two other men besides me." I felt a little more 'ud set me screaming like a wired hare.

'"Undoubtedly American," Talleyrand goes on. "You would gain something if you returned the s.h.i.+p--with a message of fraternal good-will--published in the _Moniteur_" (that's a French paper like the Philadelphia _Aurora_).

'"A good idea!" Boney answers. "One could say much in a message."

'"It might be useful," says Talleyrand. "Shall I have the message prepared?" He wrote something in a little pocket ledger.

'"Yes--for me to embellish this evening. The _Moniteur_ will publish it to-night."

'"Certainly. Sign, please," says Talleyrand, tearing the leaf out.

'"But that's the order to return the brig," says Boney. "Is that necessary? Why should I lose a good s.h.i.+p? Haven't I lost enough s.h.i.+ps already?"

'Talleyrand didn't answer any of those questions. Then Boney sidled up to the table and jabs his pen into the ink. Then he s.h.i.+es at the paper again: "My signature alone is useless," he says. "You must have the other two Consuls as well. Sieyes and Roger Ducos must sign. We must preserve the Laws."

'"By the time my friend presents it," says Talleyrand, still looking out of the window, "only one signature will be necessary."

'Boney smiles. "It's a swindle," says he, but he signed and pushed the paper across.

'"Give that to the President of the Prize Court at Le Havre," says Talleyrand, "and he will give you back your s.h.i.+p. I will settle for the cargo myself. You have told me how much it cost. What profit did you expect to make on it?"

'Well, then, as man to man, I was bound to warn him that I'd set out to run it into England without troubling the Revenue, and so I couldn't rightly set bounds to my profits.'

'I guessed that all along,' said Puck.

'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst-- That wasn't a smuggler last and first.'

The children laughed.

'It's comical enough now,' said Pharaoh. 'But I didn't laugh then. Says Talleyrand after a minute, "I am a bad accountant and I have several calculations on hand at present. Shall we say twice the cost of the cargo?"

'Say? I couldn't say a word. I sat choking and nodding like a China image while he wrote an order to his secretary to pay me, I won't say how much, because you wouldn't believe it.

'"Oh! Bless you, abbe! G.o.d bless you!" I got it out at last.

'"Yes," he says, "I am a priest in spite of myself, but they call me bishop now. Take this for my episcopal blessing," and he hands me the paper.

'"He stole all that money from me," says Boney over my shoulder. "A Bank of France is another of the things we must make. Are you mad?" he shouts at Talleyrand.

'"Quite," says Talleyrand, getting up. "But be calm; the disease will never attack you. It is called grat.i.tude. This gentleman found me in the street and fed me when I was hungry."

'"I see; and he has made a fine scene of it and you have paid him, I suppose. Meantime, France waits."

'"Oh! poor France!" says Talleyrand. "Good-bye, Candide," he says to me. "By the way," he says, "have you yet got Red Jacket's permission to tell me what the President said to his Cabinet after Monsieur Genet rode away?"

'I couldn't speak, I could only shake my head, and Boney--so impatient he was to go on with his doings--he ran at me and fair pushed me out of the room. And that was all there was to it.'

Pharaoh stood up and slid his fiddle into one of his big skirt pockets as though it were a dead hare.