Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 41

Well, gentlemen, not to wear out your patience, I will at once proceed to the very heart of my story--plunge into the very thick of the lather, as my poor father used to say--being about the time of my going abroad, and the reason of it. It was now some time since I had begun to cast sheep's eyes on the pretty Sally Snip, daughter of Simon Snip, the village tailor. We met by stealth, took long walks together of a Sunday in the green lane, danced together on the green on holidays, exchanged tokens, breathed vows of eternal fidelity, and all the rest of it. Our interviews were detected at length by Sally's parents, who looked on our attachment with no favourable eyes. Old Snip was ambitious, and designed quite another match for his daughter than a penniless young barber like myself, and gave me plainly to understand that if I did not _sheer_ off he would _baste_ my broadcloth for me. I was in a rage, but smothered it for prudence sake, yet didn't I wish in that moment that I had the shaving of him--wouldn't I have sc.r.a.ped him, that's all! Well, words grew high; I protested that my intentions were strictly honourable, etc., etc., but all to no purpose; the obstinate old parent wouldn't see what was for his daughter's good, and I left him very much disgusted. A few stolen interviews were attempted after this, but were all frustrated, and I soon saw we were not destined for one another, so we met for the last time, wept, embraced, and vowed still to love each other to eternity.

Now, there is no knowing but I might still have sought to renew my interviews, had not an extraordinary circ.u.mstance occurred to alter my determination. On the very night after our parting I was tossing restlessly on my bed, between sleeping and waking, when all of a sudden--whether it was a dream, I know not, but I fancy that I was awake--all at once there stood by my bedside the spirit of my father in the habiliments of the grave, unblemished in whiteness as the suds he used in his lifetime, and, approaching me solemnly, said,

"My son, all that has happened is for the best. Stick to thy trade, and rival the most ill.u.s.trious of thy ancestors, to which end thou must visit Paris. I will guide thy steps. Practise incessantly. We shall meet again."

With these words the vision vanished, and I felt myself bathed in a cold sweat.

I slept no more that night, but rose early the following morning. My determination was fixed, for a parent's command from the other side of the tomb was not to be combated, so I sc.r.a.ped together my slender earnings, tied up my bundle, took leave of my employer, and paid my pa.s.sage over to Paris.

Soon after my departure Sally Snip became the wife of Daniel Nimble, an aspiring apprentice of old Simon's. This was my first love, and, like most first loves, ended miserably. Few men there are I wot who can boast of having loved but once, and of having lived uncrossed in that love to the end of the chapter. But I digress.

No sooner arrived in Paris than I began searching out the names and addresses of the most celebrated men in the hair line of the day with a view of offering my services as a.s.sistant. The day after my arrival I pa.s.sed a large and handsome shop, evidently a first-rate business, with a large printed card in the window. Now, although at that time I had not the remotest knowledge of the French language, and consequently could not possibly understand what was written on the card, yet an indescribable I-don't-know-what, an inexplicable "_je-ne-sais-quoi_"

(perchance a spiritual dig in the ribs from my father), induced me to interpret the words, "_A boy wanted_." I was as certain as I am of my own existence that the proprietor was in want of an a.s.sistant and that my services would be accepted, so I entered the shop, addressed the proprietor in English, which, it is needless to say, was perfectly unintelligible to him. However, by expressive signs, I told him I was an adept, and that he couldn't do better than engage me. He smiled, the bargain was struck, and from that day I commenced my career in a foreign land.

My employer was one Pierre le Chauve, a hair-dresser who had an extensive business in the Rue St. Honore, and who was especially renowned for the neatness and elegance of his wigs. He also cut hair, manufactured fancy soaps, hair oil, hair dye, perfumery, and the like.

He had one daughter, Mademoiselle Pauline, of some eighteen summers, as neat a little grisette as ever trod the Champs Elysees or the Bois de Boulogne on Sundays, and who presided at the counter and sold articles of perfumery to the Parisian exquisites, with whom she chatted with the most charming ease and grace and bewitching navete.

Pauline was the thorough type of a French girl. Eyes of dark hazel, set wide apart in her head, nez retrousee, rather wide mouth and exceptional teeth, small hand and foot, jimp waist, and a countenance capable of every possible shade of expression, while her voice, by nature pitched in a high key, rose to shrillest treble when under any excitement.

Besides myself, there was another a.s.sistant, one Jacques Millefleurs, a conceited French puppy, who fancied himself irresistible, and used to persecute his employer's daughter with the most marked attentions whenever her father's back was turned, and which she, it must be confessed, did not appear to be entirely indifferent to, although, at the same time, she gave him plainly to understand that she intended to flirt with whomever she liked without asking _his_ permission, and that he had no right whatever to monopolise her. Jacques was of an exceedingly jealous temper, and could ill brook this tone from the object of his affections; this she knew well, and often took a malicious delight in provoking him by putting on her best airs and graces and being doubly fascinating whenever a handsome customer came to the shop.

It was then that Jacques would grow pale, and dart vicious side glances from the corners of his eyes; but Pauline took no notice of him whatever, but flirted more and more, as if to aggravate him. After the customer had departed they would have a lovers' quarrel, and then they would make it up again, and so on from day to day.

Now, all this could be of very little interest to me, even if I had understood their conversation, for had I not my own secret grief? Was it to be supposed that I could forget Sally in a day? No; whilst I in silence counted and separated the hairs destined to be woven into the scalp of a wig, or whilst shaving a customer or cutting his hair, my soul was in the green lane with Sally, or behind her at church, or under her window at night, watching for a momentary glimpse of her shadow on the window blind. In fact, whatever happened to be my employment, Sally was ever uppermost in my thoughts, and still continued to be so, even some time after the sad news reached me that she had married Daniel Nimble. This shock at first was terrific, but, gradually subsiding, I resolved at length that, as she had so soon forgotten me, not to think of her any more, which in time I succeeded in doing. From being moody and silent, I now became more talkative, for I had begun to pick up a few phrases in French.

Mademoiselle Pauline encouraged me in my progress, and was pleased to take a great interest in me, much to the disgust of her admirer, Jacques Millefleurs, who began to look upon me as a probable rival. I daily improved in the French language under my fair tutor, and day by day she gained upon me, for she certainly had the most winning manners. The more I talked with her, the less I thought of Sally, till at last she succeeded in completely supplanting her in my heart, and I found myself, before I was well aware of it, head over ears in love with the fascinating grisette.

Here was a to do. Murder will out. Love and a cough are two things one can't hide, as the proverb says.

The odious Jacques _must_ discover my pa.s.sion ere long, and a quarrel will be inevitable. Not that I feared the likes of him, gentlemen. Don't suppose it for a moment. Why, I'd take half a dozen or so of such fellows one off and another on, and thrash the whole lot of them as easy as a game of ninepins. Well, but to proceed, gentlemen. What I foresaw soon happened. One day while taking my French lesson under Mademoiselle Pauline, and we were chatting away merrily enough without taking any notice of Jacques, who was arranging pots of bears' grease on the shelves in the background, our heads drew very close together, and we were looking very fondly into each other's eyes and whispering rather low.

Now, I knew that there was no engagement between her and Jacques, therefore I had every right to pay her just the same attention that he did, and I intended to let him know it. Well, my head might have touched hers, or my locks may have intermingled with hers as we pored over the French grammar together. However this may have been, something or other seems to have exasperated my rival, for I heard him mutter to himself something like _Cochon d'un Anglais_. I was getting on in my French now and understood the words, so turning round, I said,

"Did your remark refer to me, Monsieur Jacques?"

"_Oui a vous_," he said, furiously, now losing all command over himself, and heedless of the consequences; "and I repeat my remark."

Here he repeated his obnoxious epithet with an invective against my countrymen in general.

"Hold there!" I cried, for I began to feel my English blood boil in my veins, and in the best French I could muster, said,

"Retract your words. I give you one chance to apologise, and if you refuse----"

Before I could finish my rival's legs had formed a right angle, and I received a _savat_ in the eye. Stung by the pain, and still more by the insult, I felt the strength of our whole line of barbers rush into my veins, and clenching my fist convulsively I let forth so terrible a blow in the chest of my adversary as to make him measure his length upon the floor, and cause the back of his head to resound against it like a cocoanut. Miss Pauline screamed, but the next moment my rival had bounced upright upon his feet, and seized a razor. Another scream from Pauline as he was making towards me, razor in hand, but this time I took up a chair and with it gave him such a blow over the knuckles as made him drop the razor and yell in agony. I laid down the chair, thinking that the fight was now over, but the Frenchman sprang on to me again like a hungry tiger, and so unexpected was the movement that I nearly lost my balance, but with great adroitness I managed to trip him up, and he fell under me.

He now began to bite and to scratch, but I seized his hair and banged his head against the ground several times. He then clutched me anew, and we began rolling over and over on the floor, Pauline screaming all the while, but extricating myself at length from his grasp, I bounded to my feet, and before he had time to rise placed one foot upon his throat. At this moment my employer attracted by his daughter's screams, entered.

"_Mille diables!_" he cried, fiercely, "_ques-ce-que ce tappage la? Ah!

ca, Monsieur G.o.dam_," said he, turning full upon me, "_esce que vous etes entre chez moi pour ensegner le box a mes eleves?_"

Here Pauline broke in.

"No, I a.s.sure you, dear papa, it was not the Englishman's fault.

Millefleurs began the quarrel. I saw him kick the Englishman in the eye."

"Ha! Monsieur Jacques, you did kick the Englishman in the eye?" inquired my employer; "and what for did you kick the Englishman in the eye?"

"Because he used undue familiarity towards Mademoiselle," said Jacques, doggedly.

Le Chauve glanced suspiciously first at me then at his daughter, but Pauline, stung at Jacques' mean attempt at exposing me as well as herself to her father's obloquy, rose in all the pride of injured womanhood, as if to take the whole burden of defence upon herself, and standing erect with compressed lips and white with pa.s.sion, cried,

"It is false, 'tis a base lie! The Englishman never treated me otherwise than with the greatest respect, nor have I ever received at his hands any of those attentions that in my indulgence I have permitted from yourself. Think not, however, Master Jacques, that this calumny will serve your turn, or that I am blind to the paltry motives that prompted it. Your absurd jealousy is seen through, and has met with its just chastis.e.m.e.nt. What was it to you, I pray, even if the Englishman _had_ paid me attention? Must you be the only one to pay me attention? You know very well that I have never granted you any right to monopolise me, however your conceit may have deluded you. Beware, therefore, in future how you attempt to calumniate either myself or this Englishman, for as sure as you are born you will not succeed in your scheme, and know, once for all, Monsieur Jacques Millefleurs, that for the future I wish all those attentions that you have been pleased to lavish upon me so profusely whenever my father's back was turned, to cease. Respect me as your employer's daughter, for I vow never to be anything more to you."

She ceased; but during her harangue, Pauline's deportment was majestic--it was sublime. No longer was she the little grisette with the c.o.c.k-nose and the wide mouth, but a tragedy queen p.r.o.nouncing a malediction. She appeared now at least half a head taller, so imposing was her att.i.tude. The roses and smile had deserted her countenance, and were supplanted by a ghastly pallor, while from her dark eyes flashed a withering scorn, under which Jacques appeared to quail like a whipped hound, but which feeling his natural pride sought to overcome.

Rage, grief, jealousy, and confusion struggled in his breast for the mastery, as he stood speechless, with clenched fists, teeth set, flushed face, and straining eyeb.a.l.l.s fixed upon the ground, to which the tears would start spite of all his efforts to repress them. His hair disordered and dirty, as well as his clothes, from his fall, he looked altogether the very picture of maniacal despair.

"Ha! Jacques," said his employer, "is this true? What! have you dared to raise your eyes to my daughter, and that, too, behind my back, without my permission--_hein_?"

Jacques, overcome with shame and speechless, never lifted his eyes from the ground, whilst the large tears, blinding him and overflowing, fell heavily on the floor.

"_Prenez garde, Monsieur Jacques_," said Le Chauve, "for, _parbleu!_ if I hear any more of these clandestine overtures with my daughter I'll discharge you on the spot. And you, too, Ma'meselle Pauline, you, too, were much to blame in not telling me at once of this boy's insolent pretensions. But, tell me once more, who began this ridiculous quarrel?

Who gave the first blow?"

"Please, sir," said I, now speaking for the first time, "I was taking my French lesson with your daughter, when Monsieur Jacques was pleased to call me '_cochon_,' and abused my country. I demanded an apology, which he refused, and before I was aware of it, kicked me in the eye. I gave one straight blow with my fist, _comme ca_"--(here I imitated the blow to show him how an Englishman could knock a Frenchman down)--"and he fell full length upon the floor."

"Yes, it is true, papa," broke in Pauline; "the Englishman has spoken the truth."

"_C'etait bien fait, c'etait bien fait_," said her father; "go on."

"Then," resumed I, "Millefleurs sprang again to his feet, and seized a razor."

"Ha! he seized a razor? Is that so, Monsieur Millefleurs? Did you seize a razor?"

Jacques was silent as before, while I proceeded, "I then seized a chair."

"You seized a chair, _hebien_!"

"And I knocked the razor out of his hand. He fell to the ground with pain, and yelled."

"_Encore, bien fait--apres?_"

"He jumped up again, and pounced upon me like a tiger, and nearly knocked me over, but I tripped him up in time, and he fell to the ground, together with myself, and then we rolled over and over each other on the floor, till I at length succeeded in extricating myself, and placed my foot upon his neck, when you entered, sir."

"_C'est bien vraie_," burst in Pauline again; "the Englishman has given an exact account of the quarrel."

"Ha! is that so?" asked Le Chauve. "_Hebien!_ Monsieur Jacques, you have refused to apologise to the Englishman for insulting him and kicking him in the eye. Now, I command you to apologise to him, or out of my shop you shall go at once. Do you hear?"

"Non; _mille fois non_!" cried Jacques, stamping with rage, forgetful alike of the respect due to his master and the presence of Pauline, "I would sooner die first."