composition; “self and twelve! A beggarly pair of rhymes, but I have not time now to enrich them. Let us try the music wedded to the words.”
Again he attacked his ballad, with a frightful nasal intonation peculiarly his own. The result was doubtless pleasing to him, for he hailed it with the jubilant grin which, like a circumflex accent, bestrode his visage whenever he was particularly pleased with himself. But his proud ecstasy was of short duration.
Eleven o’clock sounded from the neighbouring steeple. Every sonorous stroke, ringing through the miserable Schaunard’s chamber, died away in mocking echoes that seemed to inquire, “Are you ready?”
He started violently on his chair.
“Time runs like a stag. I have to find seventy-five francs and new lodgings, and only three-quarters of an hour to do it in—which I never shall. It is altogether too much in the conjuring line. See here, I will give myself five minutes to find out how to do it,” and, burying his head between his knees, he dived into the abysmal depths of reflection.
The five minutes went by. Schaunard lifted his head again, but he had found nothing that in the least resembled his seventy-five francs.
“If I am to get out of this there is precisely one way of setting about it, and that is to walk out quite naturally. My friend Chance may be taking a stroll outside in the sun; he surely will offer me hospitality until I can settle with M. Bernard.”
So saying, Schaunard stuffed everything that could be stowed into his great-coat pockets (two receptacles capacious as cellars), tied up a selection of linen into a bundle, took leave of his room with a few words of farewell, and went downstairs.
The concierge seemed to be on the look-out, for he called across the yard to Schaunard, and barred his passage out.
“Hi! M. Schaunard. Can you have forgotten? To-day is the 8th.”
“Eight and eight make sixteen
(Six, and you carry the one),”
hummed Schaunard. “It is the one thought in my mind.”
“You are a little behindhand with your moving, and that is a fact,” remarked the concierge. “It is half-past eleven; the new tenant may come in at any moment and want your room. You had better look sharp.”
“Very well, then, just let me pass. I am going out to find a cart to remove my things.”
“No doubt; but there is one little formality to discharge first. My orders are not to let you take away so much as a hair till you have paid up what you owe for the three last terms. You are ready to do so, I suppose?”
“Rather!” returned Schaunard, taking a step forward.
“Then, if you will step into my room, I will give you the receipts at once.”
“I will look in for that when I come back.”
“But why not now?” persisted the man.
“I am going out to get change.”
“Oho! you are going out to get change, are you?” returned the other suspiciously. “Well, then, just to oblige you, I’ll take care of that little bundle you have under your arm; you might find it in your way.”
“Monsieur le concierge!” said Schaunard with much dignity, “is it possible that you harbour any suspicions of me? Can you suppose that I am capable of removing my furniture in a pocket-handkerchief?”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” replied the man, lowering his tone a little, “those are my orders. M. Bernard expressly forbade me to allow you to take away one hair until you had paid up.”
“Now, just look,” said Schaunard, untying his bundle, “there are no hairs here. These are shirts that I am taking to the laundress, not twenty paces away, next door to the money-changer’s.”
“That is another thing,” the concierge admitted after a scrutiny of the contents. “If it’s a fair question, M. Schaunard, may I ask for your new address?”
“I am staying in the Rue de Rivoli,” Schaunard answered coolly; but by this time he had one foot in the street, and was out and away at his utmost speed.
“Rue de Rivoli,” muttered the concierge with a finger to his nose, “Rue de Rivoli. It is very odd that anybody should let him take a room in the Rue de Rivoli without coming here to ask about him, very odd! After all, he can’t take away his things, at any rate, without paying his rent. If only the new lodger does not come in just as M. Schaunard is going out. A pretty row there would be on the stairs! Hullo! just as I thought,” he cried, suddenly popping his head out at the wicket, “here comes the new lodger himself.”
A young man with a white Louis XIII. hat was, in fact, turning in under the archway, and behind him came a commissionaire who seemed to be by no means bending under his burden.
“Is my room at liberty?” inquired this person as the concierge came out to meet him.
“Not yet, sir, but it will be ready directly. The last tenant has gone out to find a cart to fetch his things. And in the meantime you can put your furniture down in the courtyard.”
“I am afraid it will rain,” returned the new tenant, placidly chewing the stalks of a bunch of violets that he held between his teeth, “and then my furniture would be damaged.” He turned to the man behind him who certainly carried a load of objects of some kind, though the concierge would have been puzzled to tell exactly what they were. “Put them down here in the entrance,” continued the man in the white hat, “and go back to my old lodgings for the rest of my valuable furniture and works of art.”
The commissionaire accordingly proceeded to stack a series of canvas-covered frames against the wall. Each separate leaf was some six or seven feet high, and apparently, if they were put end to end, they might spread out to any required extent. Their owner tilted one of them forward and looked inside.
“Look here!” he cried, pointing to a notch torn in the canvas. “Here is a misfortune! You have cracked my great Venetian mirror! Next time try to mind what you are about, and be particularly careful of my book-case.”
“What does he mean with his Venetian mirror?” muttered the concierge, peering suspiciously at the stack of frames. “There is no looking-glass there. It is a joke, of course; the thing looks like a screen to me. At any rate, we shall soon see what he brings next.”
“Your lodger is going to let me have the room directly, is he not? It is half-past twelve, I should be glad to move in,” remarked the new tenant.
“I don’t think he will be long now,” said the concierge. “Besides, there’s no harm done yet, seeing that your furniture is still to come,” he added, laying some stress on the last few words. The young man was just about to reply when an orderly in dragoon’s uniform entered the yard.
“M. Bernard?” inquired the dragoon, drawing a letter from a big leather pouch that flapped against him at every movement.
“This is where he lives.”
“Then here is a letter for him. Give me a receipt for it,” and he held out a printed form for signature.
“Excuse me,” said the concierge as he retired into the house, addressing the owner of the frames, now tramping impatiently up and down the yard, “this is a letter from the Government, and I must go up to M. Bernard with it. He is my employer.”
M. Bernard was in the act of shaving when his concierge appeared.
“What do you want, Durand?”
“An orderly has just come and brought this for you, sir,” said Durand, removing his cap. “It is from the Government.” As he spoke he held out an envelope stamped with the seal of the War Office.
M. Bernard grew so excited that he all but cut himself with his razor. “Good Lord!” cried he. “The War Office! I am sure it is my nomination as Chevalier of the Legion