Part 7 (1/2)
”That's whut I am, m' friend,” he returned firmly. ”You don't have to have a red dope-book in one hand and a thoid-cla.s.s choo-choo ticket in the other to be a tourist, do you?”
”But if you will pardon me,” I said, ”where did you get the notion that Les Trois Pigeons is one of the regular sights?”
”Ain't it in all the books?”
”I don't think that it is mentioned in any of the guide-books.”
”NO! I didn't say it WAS, m' friend,” he retorted with contemptuous pity. ”I mean them history-books. It's in all o' THEM!”
”This is strange news,” said I. ”I should be very much interested to read them!”
”Lookahere,” he said, taking a step nearer me; ”in oinest now, on your woid: Didn' more'n half them Jeanne d'Arc tamales live at that hotel wunst?”
”n.o.body of historical importance--or any other kind of importance, so far as I know--ever lived there,” I informed him. ”The older portions of the inn once belonged to an ancient farm-house, that is all.”
”On the level,” he demanded, ”didn't that William the Conker nor NONE o' them ancient gilt-edges live there?”
”No.”
”Stung again!” He broke into a sudden loud cackle of laughter. ”Why!
the feller tole me 'at this here Pigeon place was all three rings when it come t' history. Yessir! Tall, thin feller he was, in a three-b.u.t.ton cutaway, English make, and kind of red-complected, with a sandy MUS-tache,” pursued the pedestrian, apparently fearing his narrative might lack colour. ”I met him right comin' out o' the Casino at Trouville, yes'day aft'noon; c'udn' a' b'en more'n four o'clock--hol'
on though, yes 'twas, 'twas nearer five, about t.w.u.n.ty minutes t' five, say--an' this feller tells me--” He cackled with laughter as palpably disingenuous as the corroborative details he thought necessary to muster, then he became serious, as if marvelling at his own wondrous verdancy. ”M' friend, that feller soitn'y found me easy. But he can't say I ain't game; he pa.s.ses me the limes, but I'm jest man enough to drink his health fer it in this sweet, sound ole-fas.h.i.+oned cider 'at ain't got a headache in a barrel of it. He played me GUD, and here's TO him!”
Despite the heartiness of the sentiment, my honest tourist's enthusiasm seemed largely histrionic, and his quaffing of the beaker too reminiscent of drain-the-wine-cup-free in the second row of the chorus, for he absently allowed it to dangle from his hand before raising it to his lips. However, not all of its contents was spilled, and he swallowed a mouthful of the sweet, sound, old-fas.h.i.+oned cider--but by mistake, I was led to suppose, from the expression of displeasure which became so deeply marked upon his countenance as to be noticeable, even in the feeble lamplight.
I tarried no longer, but bidding this good youth and the generations of Baudry good-night, hastened on to my belated dinner.
”Amedee,” I said, when my cigar was lighted and the usual hour of consultation had arrived; ”isn't that old lock on the chest where Madame Brossard keeps her silver getting rather rusty?”
”Monsieur, we have no thieves here. We are out of the world.”
”Yes, but Trouville is not so far away.”
”Truly.”
”Many strange people go to Trouville: grand-dukes, millionaires, opera singers, princes, jockeys, gamblers--”
”Truly, truly!”
”And tourists,” I finished.
”That is well known,” a.s.sented Amedee, nodding.
”It follows,” I continued with the impressiveness of all logicians, ”that many strange people may come from Trouville. In their excursions to the surrounding points of interest--”
”Eh, monsieur, but that is true!” he interrupted, laying his right forefinger across the bridge of his nose, which was his gesture when he remembered anything suddenly. ”There was a strange monsieur from Trouville here this very day.”
”What kind of person was he?”