Part 12 (1/2)

”Yes,” he said, after a pause, ”I have news of all sorts--news which goes to prove that you are quite right to take an apartment instead of going to the hotel. The Mangles arrived here this morning--Mangles frere, Mangles soeur, and Miss Cahere. I say, Cartoner--” He paused, and examined his own boots with a critical air.

”I say, Cartoner, how old do you put me?”

”Fifty.”

”All that, mon cher?--all that? Old enough to play the part of an old fool who excels all other fools.”

Cartoner took up his pen again. He had suddenly thought of something to put down, and in his odd, direct way proceeded to write, while Deulin watched him.

”I say,” said the Frenchman at length, and Cartoner paused, pen in hand--”what would you think of me if I fell in love with Netty Cahere?”

”I should think you a very lucky man if Netty Cahere fell in love with you,” was the reply.

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

”Yes,” he said. ”I have known you a good many years, and have gathered that that is your way of looking at things. You want your wife to be in love with you. Odd! I suppose it is English. Well, I don't know if there is any harm done, but I certainly had a queer sensation when I saw Miss Cahere suddenly this morning. You think her a nice girl?”

”Very nice,” replied Cartoner, gravely.

Deulin looked at him with an odd smile, but Cartoner was looking at the letter before him.

”What I like about her is her quiet ways,” suggested Deulin, tentatively.

”Yes.”

Then they lapsed into silence, while Cartoner thought of his letter.

Deulin, to judge from a couple of sharp sighs which caught him unawares, must have been thinking of Netty Cahere. At length the Frenchman rose and took his leave, making an appointment to dine with Cartoner that evening.

Out in the street he took off his hat to high heaven again.

”More lies!” he murmured, humbly.

IX

THE SAND-WORKERS

At the foot of the steep and narrow Bednarska--the street running down from the Cracow Faubourg to the river--there are always many workers.

It is here that the bathing-houses and the boat-houses are. Here lie the steamers that ply slowly on the shallow river. Here, also, is a trade in timber where from time to time one of the smaller rafts that float from the Carpathians down to Dantzic is moored and broken up. Here, also, are loafers, who, like flies, congregate naturally near the water.

A few hundred yards higher up the river, between the Bednarska and the s.p.a.cious Jerozolimska Alley, many carts and men work all day in the sand which the Vistula deposits along her low banks. The Jerozolimska starts hopefully from the higher parts of the city--the widest, the newest, the most Parisian street in the town, Warsaw's only boulevard--down the hill, as if it expected to find a bridge at the bottom. But there is no bridge there, and the fine street dwindles away to sandy ruts and a broken tow-path. Here horses struggle vainly to drag heavy sand-carts from the ruts, while their drivers swear at them and the sand-workers lean on their spades and watch. A cleaner sand is dredged from the middle or brought across in deep-laden punts from the many banks that render navigation next to impossible--a clean, hard sand, most excellent for building purposes.

It was the hour of the mid-day dinner--for Polish hours are the hours of the early Victorian meals. Horses and men were alike at rest. The horses nibbled at the thin gra.s.s, while the men sat by the water and ate their gray bread, which only tastes of dampness and carraway-seeds. It was late autumn, and the sun shone feebly through a yellow haze. The scene was not exhilarating. The Vistula, to put it plainly, is a dismal river.

Poland is a dismal country. A witty Frenchman, who knew it well, once said that it is a country to die for, but not to live in.

It was only natural that the workmen should group together for their uninteresting meal. The sand-bank offered a comfortable seat. Their position was in a sense a strategetical one. They were in full view of the bridge and of the high land behind them, but no one could approach within half a mile unperceived.

”Yes,” one of the workmen was saying, ”those who know say that there will inevitably be a kingdom of Poland again. Some day. And if some day, why not now? Why not this time?”

His hearers continued to eat in silence. Some were slightly built, oval-faced men--real Poles; others had the narrower look of the Lithuanian; while a third type possessed the broad and placid face that comes from Posen. Some were born to this hard work of the sand-hills; others had that look in the eyes, that carriage of the head, which betokens breeding and suggests an ancestral story.

”The third time, they say, is lucky,” answered a white-haired man, at length. He was a strong man, with the lines of hunger cut deeply in his face. The work was nothing to him. He had labored elsewhere. The others turned and looked at him, but he said no more. He glanced across the river towards the spires of Praga pointing above the brown trees.