Part 11 (2/2)

”No crowds allowed. Step lively,” called the _sergeants-de-ville_, at their wits' end. ”Better go back home, they might return. Step lively, I say!”

It happened thus the first few visits, but presently the situation became less humorous. One began to get accustomed to it. Then one commenced to dislike it and protest.

Seated by the studio fire, we were both plunged deep in our books.

”_Allons_!” exclaimed H. ”Do you hear the _pompiers_? The Gothas again!”

We stiffened up in our chairs and listened. The trumpets sounded shrilly on the night air of our tranquil Parisian quarter.

”Right you are. That means down we go! They might have waited until I finished my chapter, hang them! There's no electricity in our cellar,”

and I cast aside my book in disgust.

Taking our coats and a steamer rug we prepared to descend. In the court-yard the clatter of feet resounded.

The cellar of our seventeenth century dwelling being extremely deep and solidly built, was at once commandeered as refuge for one hundred persons in case of bombardment, and we must needs share it with some ninety odd less fortunate neighbours.

”Hurry up there. Hurry up, I say,” calls a sharp nasal voice.

That voice belonged to Monsieur Leddin, formerly a clock maker, but now of the _Service Auxiliare_, and on whom devolved the policing of our entire little group, simply because of his uniform.

His observations, however, have but little effect. People come straggling along, yawning from having been awakened in their first sleep, and almost all of them is hugging a bundle or parcel containing his most precious belongings.

It is invariably an explosion which finally livens their gait, and they hurry into the stairway. A slight jam is thus produced.

”No pus.h.i.+ng there! Order!” cries another stentorian voice, belonging to Monsieur Vidalenc, the coal dealer.

”Here! here!” echo several high pitched trebles. ”_Tres bien, tres bien_. Follow in line--what's the use of crowding?”

Monsieur Leddin makes another and still shriller effort, calling from above:

”Be calm now. Don't get excited.”

”Who's excited?”

”You are!”

”Monsieur Leddin, you're about as fit to be a soldier as I to be an Archbishop,” sneered the butcher's wife. ”You'd do better to leave us alone and hold your peace.”

General hilarity, followed by murmurs of approval from various other females, which completely silenced Monsieur Leddin, who never reopened his mouth during the entire evening, so that one could not tell whether he was nursing his offended dignity or hiding his absolute incompetence to a.s.sume authority.

Places were quickly found on two or three long wooden benches, and a few chairs provided for the purpose, some persons even spreading out blankets and camping on the floor.

The raiment displayed was the typical negligee of the Parisian working cla.s.s; a dark coloured woollen dressing gown, covered over with a shawl or a cape, all the attire showing evidence of having been hastily donned with no time to think of looking in the mirror.

An old lantern and a kerosene lamp but dimly lighted the groups which were shrouded in deep velvety shadows.

Presently a man, a man that I had never seen before, a man with a long emaciated face and dark pointed beard, rose in the background, holding a blanket draped about him by flattening his thin white hand against his breast. The whole scene seemed almost biblical, and instantly my mind evoked Rembrandt's masterpiece--the etching called 'The Hundred Florin Piece,' which depicts the crowds seated about the standing figure of our Saviour and listening to His divine words.

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