The Flower Girl of The Chateau d'Eau Volume Ii Part 10

"Not very strong."

"Ah! I could give you lessons in that."

"You know how to drink champagne?"

"I should say so! I know thirty-three different ways of emptying one's gla.s.s."

"Thirty-three ways! ah! that's the sort of thing I would like to know.

So you are not angry with me any longer, neighbor?"

"I cannot be, as you have apologized."

"I repeat my apology."

"And if you had told me sooner that you were tipsy----"

"True, I should have begun with that when I entered the room. As for my parrot, never fear, my dear neighbor, you won't hear from him any more.

I have a dressing room beyond my two rooms; that is a long distance from you, and if I close all the doors, I think that you will not be able to hear him talk."

"Very good, and on my side, I hope not to be confined to the house long.

Then, as I seldom come home except to go to bed, you can teach your parrot to talk at your ease."

"My dear neighbor, I am overjoyed that this little discussion has afforded me the pleasure of making your acquaintance. I see that you are a man who has lived--when one knows thirty-three ways of drinking champagne!"

"Yes, it is true, I have lived, and very well--too well apparently, as they say that that's the cause of my gout."

"As soon as you are cured, I hope to dine with you; will you do me the honor to accept an invitation?"

"Why not? I have never refused an opportunity to enjoy myself, and I don't propose to do so now."

"I will take you to dinner with a fascinating woman, an actress on the boulevard. That will not offend you?"

"Offend me? far from it! in the old days, I would have invited you to dine with four."

"Bravo! bravissimo! I see that we are made to get along together; you are very jovial."

"I am much more so when I am not ill."

"Wait--just wait three minutes, if you please; I am going to make an experiment with Coco."

Saint-Arthur hastily left Roncherolle and went to his room where he was heard to close several doors. After a few moments he returned and asked:

"Well, did you hear?"

"What?"

"Did you hear my bird talking?"

"Not a sound!"

"Ah! victory! I took him into the little dressing room, beyond the two rooms, and there he will stay. I made him talk a great deal, in fact."

"Did he say: 'Dutaillis is lovely?'"

"No, he said: 'Good-day, Monsieur Brillant!' but I will teach him, I will persist, and so long as it doesn't inconvenience you----"

"I can't hear it at all now."

"Then it will go all by itself. Au revoir, my dear neighbor; overjoyed to make your acquaintance. You will allow me to come and inquire for your health?"

"Whenever you please."

"I shall please often. Au revoir then; at your service; don't move."

"Oh! there's no danger of that!"

"To be sure; I keep forgetting your gout; what a thoughtless creature I am!--Your servant."

Saint-Arthur bowed to the ground this time, then left the house, saying to Beauvinet, whom he pa.s.sed on the way:

"I have seen the gentleman who rooms beside me, and he is a delightful man, a man of the greatest merit, a man whom I expect to see a great deal of; and _sapristi!_ no one had better speak ill of him in my presence; whoever does so will have me to reckon with!"

The young man of the house was thunderstruck at these words, and in his effort to recover his wits, he pulled his wig over his left ear.

XXIX

A HIGH FLYER

Thus Saint-Arthur became, as to Monsieur de Roncherolle, a zealous, courteous, obliging, and above all, a very neighborly neighbor. The little dandy, seeing the gouty gentleman frequently, was astonished to find him possessed of much intelligence and joviality, with a piquant, original way of telling a story, and a memory abundantly supplied with comical, entertaining and sometimes rather risque anecdotes; but in Saint-Arthur's eyes this last quality doubled their merit; he tried to remember some of the tales that Roncherolle had told him, and went off to repeat them to his mistress, who was greatly amused and said to him:

"My word! why, you know any number of funny stories now! it's amazing, my dear; do you know that you are really getting to be amusing; can it be that you have some wit of your own? Oh! how well you have concealed your capacity!"

"Why, yes, I have concealed it," replied Saint-Arthur, stroking his chin; "I'm concealing lots of other things, too."

"Oh! you surprise me more and more, my dear."

Roncherolle, being forced to keep his room, was not sorry someone should come to visit him; the nonsense of his little messenger made him laugh; the story of his new friend's _bonnes fortunes_ diverted him mightily; and when Saint-Arthur said to him: "Don't you think that I am a fortunate mortal with the ladies?" he would reply with a slight shrug: "It's a fact that the ladies are very fond of men like you."

Saint-Arthur asked his neighbor several times to teach him some of his methods of drinking champagne; but Roncherolle simply smiled and replied:

"Those things can't be taught except at the table."

At last the gout entirely disappeared, and one day Saint-Arthur failed to find Roncherolle in his room; he was sorely disappointed, for his neighbor's witty conversation had become necessary to him; he retained some sc.r.a.ps of it now and then. It is always well to frequent people of intelligence, they allow themselves to be robbed so readily!

The little dandy rose early the next day, in order to find his neighbor before he went out; he caught him as he was leaving his bed and said to him: