Part 19 (1/2)

As the sun rose and diffused its beams in an atmosphere whose temperature had just been recorded as 50 F., the apothecary stepped half out of his shop-door to face the bracing air that came blowing upon his tired forehead from the north. As he did so, he said to himself:

”How are these two Honore Grandissimes related to each other, and why should one be thought capable of attempting the life of Agricola?”

The answer was on its way to him.

There is left to our eyes but a poor vestige of the picturesque view presented to those who looked down the rue Royale before the garish day that changed the rue Enghien into Ingine street, and dropped the 'e'

from Royale. It was a long, narrowing perspective of arcades, lattices, balconies, _zaguans_, dormer windows, and blue sky--of low, tiled roofs, red and wrinkled, huddled down into their own shadows; of canvas awnings with fluttering borders, and of grimy lamp-posts twenty feet in height, each reaching out a gaunt iron arm over the narrow street and dangling a lamp from its end. The human life which dotted the view displayed a variety of tints and costumes such as a painter would be glad to take just as he found them: the gayly feathered Indian, the slashed and tinselled Mexican, the leather-breeched raftsmen, the blue-or yellow-turbaned _negresse_, the sugar-planter in white flannel and moccasins, the average townsman in the last suit of clothes of the lately deceased century, and now and then a fas.h.i.+onable man in that costume whose union of tight-b.u.t.toned martial severity, swathed throat, and effeminate superabundance of fine linen seemed to offer a sort of state's evidence against the pompous tyrannies and frivolities of the times.

The _marchande des calas_ was out. She came toward Joseph's shop, singing in a high-pitched nasal tone this new song:

”De't.i.t zozos--ye te a.s.sis-- De't.i.t zozos--si la barrier.

De't.i.t zozos, qui zabotte; Qui ca ye di' mo pas conne.

”Manzeur-poulet vini simin, Croupe si ye et croque ye; Personn' pli' 'tend' ye zabotte-- De't.i.t zozos si la barrier.”

”You lak dat song?” she asked, with a chuckle, as she let down from her turbaned head a flat Indian basket of warm rice cakes.

”What does it mean?”

She laughed again--more than the questioner could see occasion for.

”Dat mean--two lill birds; dey was sittin' on de fence an' gabblin'

togeddah, you know, lak you see two young gals sometime', an' you can't mek out w'at dey sayin', even ef dey know demself? H-ya! Chicken-hawk come 'long dat road an' jes' set down an' munch 'em, an' n.o.body can't no mo' hea' deir lill gabblin' on de fence, you know.”

Here she laughed again.

Joseph looked at her with severe suspicion, but she found refuge in benevolence.

”Honey, you ought to be asleep dis werry minit; look lak folks been a-worr'in' you. I's gwine to pick out de werry bes' _calas_ I's got for you.”

As she delivered them she courtesied, first to Joseph and then, lower and with hushed gravity, to a person who pa.s.sed into the shop behind him, bowing and murmuring politely as he pa.s.sed. She followed the new-comer with her eyes, hastily accepted the price of the cakes, whispered, ”Dat's my mawstah,” lifted her basket to her head and went away. Her master was Frowenfeld's landlord.

Frowenfeld entered after him, calas in hand, and with a grave ”Good-morning, sir.”

”--m'sieu',” responded the landlord, with a low bow.

Frowenfeld waited in silence.

The landlord hesitated, looked around him, seemed about to speak, smiled, and said, in his soft, solemn voice, feeling his way word by word through the unfamiliar language:

”Ah lag to teg you apar'.”

”See me alone?”

The landlord recognized his error by a fleeting smile.

”Alone,” said he.