Paul and His Dog Volume I Part 70

"There was no need of his being so emphatic about not insisting that people should call on him; he need have no fear--we shall never set foot inside his door."

A quarter of an hour after Monsieur Jarnouillard's departure, Poucette appeared once more, with a smile on her face, saying:

"Now it's Monsieur le Docteur Antoine Beaub.i.+.c.hon, who asks permission to salute the ladies."

"Evidently they have pa.s.sed the word along," said Honorine; "but this time, at all events, we know whom we have to deal with; show in monsieur le docteur."

XXV

THE LOST CHILD

The short, stout, puffy little man, who gasped for breath when he had climbed a flight of stairs or walked a little faster than usual, appeared in his turn, and saluted the two ladies as old acquaintances.

"It is I, madame, come to pay my respects--that is to say, if I don't disturb you; if my presence at this moment is inopportune, pray tell me, and I will go at once."

"No, monsieur le docteur, your presence is not inopportune; on the contrary, we hope that it will make up to us in some measure for the visit we have just received."

"Ah! have you had visitors from Paris?"

"Not from Paris, but from the neighborhood: first, Monsieur Luminot; he seemed to us to be very jovial, although his jests are not always in the best taste; but after him there came a certain Monsieur Jarnouillard.--Really, we could very well have done without his visit!

Everything about the man is disagreeable,--his face, his dress, his language; and his curiosity is beyond words!"

"Oh! as to that, mesdames, it's a common failing in small places; there are few people here, and everyone wants to know what his neighbor is doing. I won't deny that I myself am reasonably curious; it's a disease that grows on one here.--Well, here you are among us; are you still satisfied with your purchase?"

"More than ever, doctor; and our house pleases us so much that we never leave it."

"Haven't you seen our square yet, the Poncelet promenade?"

"No, but it seems that it is very pretty, for we have already heard of it."

"Why, yes; it's a square worthy of a large city.--And then you mustn't judge our society by Monsieur Jarnouillard; we have some very pleasant people--large land-owners; to be sure, they stay at home and rarely come to our houses.--Have you been to walk in the direction of the Tower yet?"

"Not yet; but we already know the owner of the place, doctor."

"Really? you know him?"

"That is to say, we met him and his dog on the bank of the Marne, on our way to Poucette's uncle's field."

"Well, what do you think of the man? Hasn't he something savage in his expression?"

"Why, no; he has the look of a man who doesn't care for society, and who doesn't shave; but, as he walked by very rapidly, I couldn't examine him closely."

"But I," said Agathe, "won the heart of his beautiful dog. He looked at me and caressed me. His master had to call him, to induce him to leave me."

"You astonish me, for he's a rascal who seldom caresses strangers.

However, I must admit that this Ami--that is his name, you know--is really endowed with extraordinary intelligence. Only three days ago he saved a child who was drowning."

"Oh! the good dog! how grateful the child's parents must be to him!"

"Parents?--the little fellow who was drowning hasn't any; it was the lost child."

"The lost child! Mon Dieu! what does that mean?"

"The peasants have given that name to the little fellow, because no one, not even his nurse, knows to whom he belongs. It's a mysterious story."

"Tell us about it, doctor; you always have interesting things to tell, and we enjoy them ever so much."

"You see--the local disease, curiosity, is taking hold of you!"

"That's very possible; but tell us about the lost child."

"First of all, I must tell you, mesdames, that about four years ago the widow Tourniquoi won a prize in a lottery. I don't know just what lottery it was, but that makes no difference to our story--the important point is that the widow Tourniquoi, who was not rich, and who had two children to bring up, won, I believe, about twenty thousand francs. To a peasant that is a large fortune! Thereupon this woman, who has an excellent heart, wrote to a sister of hers at Morfontaine, near Ermenonville; this sister was a widow also, and was not fortunate; so Madame Tourniquoi wrote to her to come to her; to leave Morfontaine, where she had no regular work, and come to live with her.

"Naturally the poor sister asked nothing better than to join her sister who was wealthy, or, at least, in comfortable circ.u.mstances. So she arrived at Ch.e.l.les one fine day with a little boy about three years and a half old.

"'Hallo!' said Madame Tourniquoi to Jacqueline--that is her sister's name--'I thought you didn't have any children, that you lost your only one when he was only a year old. But never mind, you and your son are welcome.'

"'This little fellow isn't mine,' replied Jacqueline, 'it's a foster-child that was placed in my charge, and left on my hands. I'll tell you how it happened. I was nursing my boy, who was four months old, and as we weren't rich, I said to my husband, who was alive then: "I'm going to Paris, to enter my name at the nurses' bureau, and then I'll wait for a child to nurse."--He agreed, so I started for Paris. When I got there, I asked a lady who was pa.s.sing, what way I should go to get to the nurses' bureau. The lady, who was dressed very simply, examined me for some time, then she says:

"'"You mean to go to the nurses' bureau and enter your name and get a child to nurse?"

"'"Yes, madame," I says, "I've come to Paris just for that."

"'"Where do you come from?"

"'"I live at Morfontaine, ten leagues from Paris."

"'"Well! your lucky star put you in my path, for if you are looking for a child to nurse, I am looking for a nurse--for a very rich lady who lay in three days ago of a fine little boy who's as good as a charm. She meant at first to bring him up on the bottle, but she's changed her mind, and I'll take you to her; so you don't need to enter your name at the nurses' bureau, which is very lucky for you, because in this way you'll save a lot of expenses."

"'I listened to the lady with joy in my heart; I was delighted to find what I wanted just as soon as I got out of the stage, and I was glad, too, to get the child of a rich person, because they always pay better.

So I told the lady that I asked nothing better than to go with her; then she took me to a big square where there was lots of carriages, told me to get into one of them with her, said something quietly to the driver, and we started.

"'I don't know anything about Paris, and I don't know where they took me. At last the carriage stopped; we were in a narrow, dirty street, and I says to myself: "It's a funny thing that rich people in Paris should live in such nasty streets!" But the lady says to me:

"'"We're going in at the rear of the house, because the noise of the carriage can't be heard so distinctly and it don't bother madame la baronne so much."

"'"Good," says I to myself, "the child's mother's a baroness--that's fine."

"'We went into a house, not a very handsome one, and up a dark staircase; then my companion took me into quite a handsome, well-furnished room. She told me to sit down and left me, to find out whether her baroness was ready to see me.

"'I waited quite a long time; at last she came back after me and took me into another room, where I saw a handsome lady stretched on a beautiful couch with a pile of cus.h.i.+ons under her. Oh! she was terrible pretty, that lady was! she was dark, and her long black hair was combed smooth and fell over her shoulders on both sides. And her eyes! oh! what eyes!

they were big and black, and I never saw such bright eyes, but they weren't soft. By the lady's side, in a dainty little cradle, was the little three days old boy; he was strong and healthy, I tell you, although he'd never had anything but the bottle. But when I offered him the breast at a sign from his mother--my word! you should have seen how the little rascal bit at it!

"'While the child was nursing, the handsome lady seemed to be doing a lot of thinking. At last she says to me: