Part 40 (1/2)

”I accept your invitation on condition of our eating this disagreeable bird,” and he pointed to the cage of the parrot, who, having smelled an Englishman, saluted him by whistling ”G.o.d Save the King.”

Dolores thought her neighbor was quizzing her, and was beginning to get angry, when Mr. Birne added:

”As I am very rich, I will buy the animal. Put your price on it.”

Dolores answered that she valued the bird, and liked it, and would not wish to see it pa.s.s into the hands of another.

”Oh, it's not in my hands I want to put it,” replied the Englishman, ”But under my feet--so--,” and he pointed to the heels of his boots.

Dolores shuddered with indignation and would probably have broken out, when she perceived on the Englishman's finger a ring, the diamond of which represented an income of twenty five hundred francs. The discovery was like a shower bath to her rage. She reflected that it might be imprudent to quarrel with a man who carried fifty thousand francs on his little finger.

”Well, sir,” she said, ”as poor Coco annoys you, I will put him in a back room, where you cannot hear him.”

The Englishman made a gesture of satisfaction.

”However,” added he, pointing once more to his boots, ”I should have preferred--.”

”Don't be afraid. Where I mean to put him it will be impossible for him to trouble milord.”

”Oh! I am not a lord; only an esquire.”

With that, Mr. Birne was retiring, after a very low bow, when Delores, who never neglected her interests, took up a small pocket from a work table and said:

”Tonight sir, is my benefit at the theater. I am to play in three pieces. Will you allow me to offer you some box tickets? The price has been but very slightly raised.” And she put a dozen boxes into the Briton's hand.

”After showing myself so prompt to oblige him,” thought she, ”he cannot refuse, if he is a gentleman, and if he sees me play in my pink costume, who knows? He is very ugly, to be sure, and very sad looking, but he might furnish me the means of going to England without being sea sick.”

The Englishman having taken the tickets, had their purport explained to him a second time. He then asked the price.

”The boxes are sixty francs each, and there are ten there, but no hurry,” said added, seeing the Englishman take out his pocketbook. ”I hope that as we are neighbors, this is not the last time I shall have the honor of a visit from you.”

”I do not like to run up bills,” replied Mr. Birne and drawing from the pocketbook a thousand franc note, he laid it on the table and slid the tickets into his pockets.

”I will give you change,” said Dolores, opening a little drawer.

”Never mind,” said the Englishman, ”the rest will do for a drink,” and he went off leaving Dolores thunder struck at his last words.

”For a drink!” she exclaimed. ”What a clown! I will send him back his money.”

But her neighbor's rudeness had only irritated the epidermis of her vanity; reflection calmed her. She thought that a thousand francs made a very nice ”pile,” after all, and that she had already put up with impertinences at a cheaper rate.

”Bah!” she said to herself. ”It won't do to be so proud. No one was by, and this is my washerwoman's mouth. And this Englishman speaks so badly, perhaps he only means to pay me a compliment.”

So she pocketed her bank note joyfully.

But that night after the theater she returned home furious. Mr. Birne had made no use of the tickets, and the ten boxes had remained vacant.

Thus on appearing on the stage, the unfortunate _beneficiaire_ read on the countenances of her lady friends, the delight they felt at seeing the house so badly filled. She even heard an actress of her acquaintance say to another, as she pointed to the empty boxes, ”Poor Dolores, she has only planted one stage box.”

”True, the boxes are scarcely occupied,” was the rejoinder.