In the Days of My Youth: A Novel

  CHAPTER XXV.

  THAT TERRIBLE MUeLLER.

  La petite Marie broke off at the sound of our oars, and blushed abecoming rose-color.

  "Will these ladies do us the honor of letting us row them back toCourbevoie?" said Mueller, running our boat close in against the sedges,and pulling off his hat as respectfully as if they were duchesses.

  Mademoiselle Marie repeated the invitation to her aunt, who accepted itat once.

  "_Tres volontiers, tres volontiers, messieurs_" she said, smiling andnodding. "We have rambled out so far--so far! And I am not as young as Iwas forty years ago. _Ah, mon Dieu_! how my old bones ache! Give me thyhand, Marie, and thank the gentlemen for their politeness."

  So Mam'selle Marie helped her aunt to rise, and we steadied the boatclose under the bank, at a point where the interlacing roots of a coupleof sallows made a kind of natural step by means of which they couldeasily get down.

  "Oh, dear! dear! it will not turn over, will it, my dear young man?_Ciel_! I am slipping ... Ah, _Dieu, merci_!--Marie, _mon cher enfant_,pray be careful not to jump in, or you will upset us all!"

  And _ma tante_, somewhat tremulous from the ordeal of embarking, settleddown in her place, while Mueller lifted Mam'selle Marie into the boat, asif she had been a child. I then took the oars, leaving him to steer; andso we pursued our way towards Courbevoie.

  "Mam'selle has of course seen the fair?" said Mueller, from behind theold lady's back.

  "No, monsieur,"

  "No! Is it possible?"

  "There was so much crowd, monsieur, and such a noise ... we were quitetoo much afraid to venture in."

  "Would you be afraid, mam'selle, to venture with me?"

  "I--I do not know, monsieur."

  "Ah, mam'selle, you might be very sure that I would take good care ofyou!"

  "_Mais ... monsieur_"...

  "These gentlemen, I see, have been angling," said the old lady,addressing me very graciously. "Have you caught many fish?"

  "None at all, madame!" I replied, loudly.

  "_Tiens_! so many as that?"

  "_Pardon_, madame," I shouted at the top of my voice. "We have caughtnothing--nothing at all."

  _Ma tante_ smiled blandly.

  "Ah, yes," she said; "and you will have them cooked presently fordinner, _n'est-ce pas_? There is no fish so fresh, and so well-flavored,as the fish of our own catching."

  "Will madame and mam'selle do us the honor to taste our fish and shareour modest dinner?" said Mueller, leaning forward in his seat in thestern, and delivering his invitation close into the old lady's ear.

  To which _ma tante_, with a readiness of hearing for which no one wouldhave given her credit, replied:--

  "But--but monsieur is very polite--if we should not be inconveniencingthese gentlemen"....

  "We shall be charmed, madame--we shall be honored!"

  "_Eh bien!_ with pleasure, then--Marie, my child, thank the gentlemenfor their amiable invitation."

  I was thunderstruck. I looked at Mueller to see if he had suddenly goneout of his senses. Mam'selle Marie, however, was infinitely amused.

  "_Fi donc!_ monsieur," she said. "You have no fish. I heard the othergentleman say so."

  "The other gentleman, mam'selle," replied Mueller, "is an Englishman, andtroubled with the spleen. You must not mind anything he says."

  Troubled with the spleen! I believe myself to be as even-tempered and asready to fall in with a joke as most men; but I should have liked atthat moment to punch Franz Mueller's head. Gracious heavens! into what aposition he had now brought us! What was to be done? How were we to getout of it? It was now just seven; and we had already been upon the waterfor more than an hour. What should we have to pay for the boat? And whenwe had paid for the boat, how much money should we have left to pay forthe dinner? Not for our own dinners--ah, no! For _ma tante's_ dinner(and _ma tante_ had a hungry eye) and for _la petite_ Marie's dinner;and _la petite_ Marie, plump, rosy, and well-liking, looked as if shemight have a capital appetite upon occasion! Should we have as much astwo and a half francs? I doubted it. And then, in the absence of amiracle, what could we do with two and a half francs, if we had them? Amiserable sum!--convertible, perhaps, into as much bouilli, bread andcheese, and thin country wine as might have satisfied our own hunger ina prosaic and commonplace way; but for four persons, two ofthem women!...

  And this was not the worst of it. I thought I knew Mueller well enough bythis time to feel that he would entirely dismiss this minorconsideration of ways and means; that he would order the dinner asrecklessly as if we had twenty francs apiece in our pockets; and that hewould not only order it, but eat it and preside at it with all thegayety and audacity in life.

  Then would come the horrible retribution of the bill!

  I felt myself turn red and hot at the mere thought of it.

  Then a dastardly idea insinuated itself into my mind. I had myreturn-ticket in my waistcoat-pocket:--what if I slipped away presentlyto the station and went back to Paris by the next train, leaving myclever friend to improvise his way out of his own scrape as besthe could?

  In the meanwhile, as I was rowing with the stream, we soon got back toCourbevoie.

  "_Are_ you mad?" I said, as, having landed the ladies, Mueller and Idelivered up the boat to its owner.

  "Didn't I admit it, two or three hours ago?" he replied. "I wonder youdon't get tired, _mon cher_, of asking the same question so often."

  "Four francs, fifty centimes, Messieurs," said the boatman, having madefast his boat to the landing-place.

  "Four francs, fifty centimes!" I echoed, in dismay.

  Even Mueller looked aghast.

  "My good fellow," he said, "do you take us for coiners?"

  "Hire of boat, two francs the hour. These gentlemen have been outnearly one hour and a half--three francs. Hire of bait andfishing-tackle, one franc fifty. Total, four francs and a half," repliedthe boatman, putting out a great brown palm.

  Mueller, who was acting as cashier and paymaster, pulled out his purse,deposited one solitary half-franc in the middle of that brown palm, andsuggested that the boatman and he should toss up for the remaining fourfrancs--or race for them--or play for them--or fight for them. Theboatman, however, indignantly rejected each successive proposal, and,being paid at last, retired with a _decrescendo_ of oaths.

  "_Tiens_!" said Mueller, reflectively. "We have but one franc left. Onefranc, two sous, and a centime. _Vive la France!_"

  "And you have actually asked that wretched old woman and her niece todinner!"

  "And I have actually solicited that excellent and admirable woman,Madame Marotte, relict of the late lamented Jacques Marotte, umbrellamaker, of number one hundred and two, Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, and herbeautiful and accomplished niece, Mademoiselle Marie Charpentier, tohonor us with their company this evening. _Dis-donc,_ what shall we givethem for dinner?"

  "Precisely what you invited them to, I should guess--the fish we caughtthis afternoon."

  "Agreed. And what else?"

  "Say--a dish of invisible greens, and a phoenix _a la Marengo_."

  "You are funny, _mon cher_."

  "Then, for fear I should become too funny--good afternoon."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I have no mind to dine first, and be kicked out of doorsafterwards. It is one of those aids to digestion that I can willinglydispense with."

  "But if I guarantee that the dinner shall be paid for--money down!"

  "Tra la la!"

  "You don't believe me? Well, come and see."

  With this, he went up to Madame Marotte, who, with her niece, had satdown on a bench under a walnut-tree close by, waiting our pleasure.

  "Would not these ladies prefer to rest here, while we seek for asuitable restaurant and order the dinner?" said Mueller insinuatingly.

  The old lady looked somewhat blank. She was not too tired to goon--thought it a pity to bring us all the way back again--would do,however, as "_ces messieurs_" pleased; and s
o was left sitting under thewalnut-tree, reluctant and disconsolate.

  "_Tiens! mon enfant_" I heard her say as we turned away, "suppose theydon't come back again!"

  We had promised to be gone not longer, than twenty minutes, or at mosthalf an hour. Mueller led the way straight to the _Toison d' Or_.

  I took him by the arm as we neared the gate.

  "Steady, steady, _mon gaillard_" I said. "We don't order our dinner, youknow, till we've found the money to pay for it."

  "True--but suppose I go in here to look for it?"

  "Into the restaurant garden?"

  "Precisely."