Part 6 (1/2)
It was Master Simp who heard a bold step on the stairs that night, and a resolute knock upon his own door.
”Arrest for debt!” cried Mr. Simp, falling tearfully upon his bed; ”I have expected the summons all day.”
”The next man may come upon that errand,” answered the ringing voice of Andy Plade. ”Freckle sleeps in Clichy to-night; Risque cannot be found; the rest are as badly off; I have news for you.”
”I am the man to be mocked,” pleaded Simp; ”but you must laugh at your own joke; I am too wretched to help you.”
”The Yankees have opened the Mississippi River; Louisiana is subjugated, and communication re-established with your neighborhood; you can go home.”
”What fraction of the way will this carry me?” said the other, holding up a five-franc piece. ”My home is farther than the stars from me.”
”It is a little sum,” urged Mr. Plade; ”one hundred dollars should pay the whole pa.s.sage.”
Mr. Simp, in response, mimicked a man shovelling gold pieces, but was too weak to prolong the pleasantry, and sat down on his empty trunk and wept, as Plade thought, like a calf.
”Your case seems indeed hopeless,” said the elder. ”Suppose I should borrow five hundred dollars on your credit, would you give me two hundred for my trouble?”
Mr. Simp said, bitterly, that he would give four hundred and ninety-five dollars for five; but Plade pressed for a direct answer to his original proffer, and Simp cried ”Yes,” with an oath.
”Then listen to me! there is no reason to doubt that your neighbors have made full crops for two years--cotton, sugar, tobacco. All this remains at home unsold and uns.h.i.+pped--yours with the rest. Take the oath of allegiance to the Yankee Government before its _charge des affaires_ in Paris. That will save your crops from confiscation, and be your pa.s.sport to return. Then write to your former banker here, promising to consign your cotton to him, if he will advance five hundred dollars to take you to Louisiana. He knows you received of old ten thousand dollars per annum. He will risk so small a sum for a thing so plausible and profitable.”
”I don't know what you have been saying,” muttered Simp. ”I cannot comprehend a scheme so intricate; you bewilder me! What is a consignment? How am I, bigad! to make that clear in a letter? Perhaps my speech in the case of Rutledge _vs._ Pinckney might come in well at this juncture.”
”Write!” cried Plade, contemptuously; ”write at my dictation.”
That night the letter was mailed; Mr. Simp was summoned to his banker's the following noon, and at dusk he met Andy Plade in the Place Vendome, and paid over a thousand francs with a sigh.
On the third night succeeding, Messrs. Plade and Hugenot were smoking their cigars at Nice, and Mr. Simp, without the least idea of what he meant to do, was drinking c.o.c.ktails on the Atlantic Ocean.
”Francine,” said Pisgah, with a woful glance at the dregs of absinthe in the tumbler, ”give me a half franc, my dear; I am poorly to-day.”
”Monsieur Pisgah,” answered Madame Francine, ”give me nine hundred and sixty-five francs, seventy-five centimes--that is your bill with me--and I am poorly also.”
”My love,” said Pisgah, rubbing his grizzled beard against the madame's fat cheek, ”you are not hard-hearted. You will pity the poor old exile.
I love you very much, Francine.”
”Stand off!” cried the madame; ”_vous m'embate!_ You say you love me; then marry me!”
”Nonsense, my angel!”
”I say marry me!” repeated the madame, stamping her foot. ”You are rich in America. You have slaves and land and houses and fine relatives. You will get all these when the war closes; but if you die of starvation in Paris, they amount to nothing. Marry me! I will keep you alive here; you will give me half of your possessions there! I shall be a grand lady, ride in my carriage, and have a nasty black woman to wash my fine clothes.”
”That is impossible, Francine,” answered Pisgah, not so utterly degraded but he felt the stigma of such a proposition from his _blanchisseuse_--and as he leaned his faded hairs upon his unnerved and quivering hands, the old pride fluttered in his heart a moment and painted rage upon his neck and temples.
”You are insulted, my lord count!” cried Madame Francine; ”an alliance with a poor washerwoman would shame your great kin. Pay me my money, you beggar! or I shall put the fine gentleman in prison for debt.”
”That would be a kindness to me, madame,” said Pisgah, very humbly and piteously.
”You are right,” she made answer, with a mocking laugh; ”I will not save your life: you shall starve, sir! you shall starve!”
In truth, this consummation seemed very close, for as Pisgah entered his creamery soon afterward, the proprietor met him at the threshold.