Messengers of Evil Part 50

"Oh, here's Janson-de-Sailly College!... Oh, what detestable remembrances you conjure up!... But--this won't do!... Go it, my boy!...

I must play the part!"

The plumber, who had just given utterance to these remarks, glanced sharply about him. When he had made sure that there was no one close on his heels, he stepped into the roadway, and started on a zigzag course which seemed likely to upset his balance. Crossing the avenue Henri-Martin, going straight, towards the town hall at the corner of the rue de la Pompe, the good plumber, who was staggering more than a little, began to stutter and stammer in a drunken voice:

"_It is the final struggle!_"

The pa.s.sers-by looked round.

"They sing the _Internationale_ in the streets now, it seems!" remarked a severe-looking gentleman.

The workman turned to this correct personage.

"What of it?... Don't you think it a jolly fine thing then?"

In a thick voice he continued to sing:

"_Let us gather, and on the morrow..._"

The severe and correct personage spoke.

"My friend, you would do better to hold your tongue!... You forget that there is a police station close by!..."

But the incorrigible plumber caught the correct personage by his coat tails.

"If I sing the _Internationale_, it's because I'm a free man--ain't I?... A free man can sing if he likes, can't he? Eh!... Why don't you sing then?... Eh!..."

The correct personage drew himself up stiffly: tried to push the obnoxious plumber away.... The workman had now reached that stage of drunkenness when discussions tend to become interminable.

The gentleman pushed the drunken man aside, saying:

"Come! Come! Go away!... Leave me alone!"

But the maudlin plumber was attracting the attention of the pa.s.sers by his gestures. He addressed the world at large.

"Would you believe it--that fellow there don't want me to sing!... No!

Well, I'm going to!" and he started triumphantly.

"_It is the--the--final ... strug-gle!_"

A policeman came out of the station with a solemn air. He put his hand on the tipsy plumber's shoulder in paternal fas.h.i.+on.

"Go along with you, my friend!... Come now--pa.s.s along--pa.s.s along!" But he could not make the plumber budge before he had finished his verse, any more than he could teach him to walk straight on the spur of the moment!... Leaving hold of the gentleman's coat tails, the worthy plumber seized the policeman's arm.'

"Oh, you, you're a brother!... I have education, I have! You're a workman too, I know!..."

As the police inspector pushed him off, trying to make him go on his way, the plumber put his arm round him.

"No! No!... show you're a workman! Sing with me!"

"_It is the final ..._"

The scandal could no longer be tolerated! Street-corner idlers were gathering, people were laughing at the policeman: strong measures were necessary.

"Come now," said the policeman. "Yes, or no! Will you be off, and go home?... Eh!... Or shall I take you to the station?..."

"You take me?... You take me?... Why, it would take four of you to take me!..."

There was no s.h.i.+lly-shallying after this! Wounded in his vanity, the servant of the law did not hesitate.

"All right!" said he; and seizing the plumber by the collar, although there was no attempt at resistance, he dragged his prisoner towards the town hall of the district, for the police station was there also.

"Some more game for the Depot!" said the policeman as he pa.s.sed the guard.... "A fellow I can't get rid of! Are the cells full up?"

Other policemen came up. An arrest in a peaceful district gives interest to the dull routine of the men on duty.

"The cells full? Go along with you! There's only a small shopkeeper who had no papers."

Thereupon the unfortunate singer, who continued to stagger about, was quickly pushed into the dark room called "the detention room."

An ordinary every day incident of the streets, this arrest of a drunkard!

"I shall have to write out a report for this fellow!" said the policeman, who had arrested the songster... "and the 'Salad Basket'[10]

pa.s.ses in an hour's time! ... I shall just do it!"

[Footnote 10: Prison van.]

"Have you anyone for the Depot to-day?" asked the driver from his high seat on the prison van. He was on a collecting journey as is usual every evening, when the Salad Baskets, as they are vulgarly called, pa.s.s to the various police stations of Paris to pick up the individuals arrested during the day.

"Two of 'em," answered the police sergeant on duty. Whilst official papers were being interchanged and forms were being filled in according to rule, policemen went to the cells to bring out the two prisoners to be despatched to the Depot.

The first to pa.s.s out was the costermonger. He was straightway put into one of the narrow compartments in the Salad Basket. Then it was the turn of the tipsy and obstreperous workman, who was now silent, moody, and apparently sober.

"Hop it now!" cried the policeman. "Come along with you, you miserable drunk!... March now!... Foot it!"

As the "drunk" hit against the part.i.tion of the narrow pa.s.sageway running up the middle of the Salad Basket, the policeman, with a shove, pushed him into one of the compartments, carefully shutting the little door on him and fastening it.

"My word!" he exclaimed. "That fellow wouldn't have been capable of walking three steps in an hour's time!"

As the driver climbed to his seat on the van, the policeman called out, with a laugh:

"You have a traveller inside who doesn't detest wine!... It's a pity to see a man in such a hoggish state!"

This same policeman would have been surprised, could he have seen the bibulous one's face when the Salad Basket cast loose from her moorings and started off in the direction of the Point-du-Jour police station, the last on the round to be visited!

The "drunk" whom one push had sufficed to plant on his seat, had briskly drawn himself upright and was smiling broadly, a wide, noiseless smile!