Peeps at People

"Mon Dieu!" she cried, as I turned. "Save me! Tell them I am your chaperon, your mother, your sister – anything – only save me! You will never regret it."

She had hardly uttered these words when a sharp rap came upon the door. "Entrez," I cried. "Que voulez-vous, messieurs?" I added, with some asperity, as five hussars entered, their swords clanking ominously.

"Your name?" said one, who appeared to be their leader.

"Anne Warrington Witherup, if you refer to me," said I, drawing myself up proudly. "If you refer to this lady," I added, "she is Mrs. Watkins Wilbur Witherup, my – ah – my step-mother. We are Americans, and I am a lady journalist."

Fortunately my remarks were made in French, and my French was of a kind which was convincing proof that I came from Westchester County.

A great change came over the intruders.

"Pardon, mademoiselle," said the leader, with an apologetic bow to myself. "We have made the grand faux pas. We have entered the wrong box."

"And may I know the cause of your unwarranted intrusion," I demanded, "without referring the question to the State Department at home?"

"We sought – we sought an enemy to

France, mademoiselle," said they. "We thought he entered here."

"I harbor only the friends of France," said I.

"Vive la Witherup!" cried the hussars, taking the observation as a compliment, and then chucking me under the chin and again apologizing, with a sweeping bow to my newly acquired step-mother, they withdrew.

"Well, mamma," said I, turning to the lady at my side, "perhaps you can shed some light on this mystery. Who are you?"

"Softly, if you value your life," came the answer. "Zola, c'est moi!"

"Mon Doo!" said I. "Vous? Bien, bien, bien!"

"Speak in English," he whispered. "Then I can understand."

"Oh, I only said well, well, well," I explained. "And you have adopted this disguise?"

"Because I have resolved to live long enough to get into the Academy," he explained. "I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your timely aid. If they had caught me they would have thrown me down into the midst of the claque."

"Come," said I, rising and taking him by the hand. "I have come to Paris to see you at home. It was my only purpose. I will escort you thither."

"Non, non!" he cried. "Never again. I am much more at home here, my dear lady, much more. Pray sit down. Why, when I left home by a subterranean passage, perhaps you are not aware, over a thousand members of the National Guard were singing the 'Marseillaise' on the front piazza. Three thousand were dancing that shocking dance, the cancan, in my back yard, and four regiments of volunteers were looking for something to eat in the kitchen, assisted by one hundred and fifty pétroleuses to do their cooking. All my bedroom furniture was thrown out of the second-story windows, and the manuscripts of my new novel were being cut up into souvenirs."

"Poor old mamma!" said I, taking him by the hand. "You can always find comfort in the thought that you have done a noble action."

"It was a pretty good scheme," replied Zola. "A million pounds sterling paid to your best advertising mediums couldn't have brought in a quarter the same amount of fame or notoriety; and then, you see, it places me on a par with Hugo, who was exiled. That's really what I wanted, Miss Witherup. Hugo was a poseur, however, and if he hadn't had the kick to be born before me – "

"Ah," said I, interrupting, for I have rather liked Hugo. "And where do you wish to go?"

"To America," he replied, dramatically. "To America. It is the only country in the world where realism is not artificial. You are a simple, unaffected, outspoken people, who can hate without hating, can love without marrying, can fight without fighting. I love you."

"Sir – or rather mamma!" said I, somewhat indignantly, for as a married man Zola had no right to make a declaration like that, even if he is a Frenchman.

"Not you as you," he hastened to say, "but you as an American I love. Ah, who is your best publisher, Miss Witherup?"

I shall not tell you what I told Zola, but they may get his next book.

"M. Zola," said I, placing great emphasis on the M, "tell me, what interested you in Dreyfus – humanity – or literature?"

"Both," he replied; "they are the same. Literature that is not humanity is not literature. Humanity that does not provide literary people with opportunity is not broad humanity, but special and selfish, and therefore is not humanity at all."

"Did Dreyfus write to you?" I asked.

"No," said he. "Nor I to him. I have no time to write letters."

"Then how did it all come about?" I demanded.

"He was attracting too much attention!" cried the novelist, passionately. "He was living tragedy while I was only writing it. People said his story was greater than any I, Émile – "

"Witherup!" said I, anxiously, for it seemed to me that the people in the next box were listening.

"Merci!" said he. "Yes, I, Mrs. Watkins Wilbur Witherup, of Westchester City, U. S. A., was told that this man's story was greater and deeper in its tragic significance than any I could conceive. Wherefore I wrote to the War Department and accused it of concealing the truth from France in the mere interests of policy, of diplomacy. I made them tremble. I made the army shiver. I have struck a blow at the republic from which it will not soon recover. And to-day Dreyfus pales beside the significance of Zola. I believe in free institutions, but Heaven help a free institution when it clashes with a paying corporation like Émile – "

"Witherup! Do be cautious," I put in again. "Yet, sir," I added, "they have quashed your sentence, and you need not go to jail."

"No," said he, gloomily. "I need not. Why? Because jail is safer than home. That is why they did it. They dare not exile me. They hope by quashing me to be rid of me. But they will see. I will force them to imprison me yet."

"If you are so anxious to visit America, why don't you?" I suggested. "There is no duty on the kind of thing we do not wish to manufacture ourselves."

"Ah," said he; "if I was exiled, they would send me. If I go as a private citizen, well, I pay my own way."

"Oh," said I. "I see."

And then, as the opera was over, we departed. Zola saw me to my carriage, and just as I entered it he said: "Excuse me, Miss Witherup, but what paper do you write for?"

I told him.

"It is a splendid journal!" he cried. "I take it every day, and especially enjoy its Sunday edition. In fact, it is the only American newspaper I read. Tell your editor this, and here is my photograph and my autograph, and a page of my manuscript for reproduction."

He took all these things out of his basque as he spoke.

"I will send you to-morrow," he added, "an original sketch in black and white of my house, with the receipt of my favorite dish, together with a recommendation of a nerve tonic that I use. With this will go a complete set of my works with a few press notices of the same, and the prices they bring on all book-stands. Good-bye. God bless you!" he concluded, huskily. "I shall miss my step-daughter as I would an only son. Adieu!"

We parted, and I returned, much affected, to my rooms, while he went back, I presume, to his mob-ridden home.

SIR HENRY IRVING

The impression left upon my mind by my curious and intensely dramatic encounter with Zola was of so theatric a nature that I resolved to get back to conventional ground once more through the medium of the stage. I was keyed up to a high pitch of nervous excitement by my unexpected meeting with an unsuspected step-mother, and the easiest return to my norm of equanimity, it seemed to me, lay through the doors of the greenroom. Hence I sought out London's only actor, Sir Henry Irving.

I found him a most agreeable gentleman. He received me cordially on the stage of his famous theatre. There was no setting of any kind. All about us were the bare cold walls of the empty stage and it was difficult to believe that this very same spot, the night before, had been the scene of brilliant revels.

"How do you do, Miss Witherup?" said Sir Henry, as I arrived, advancing with his peculiar stride, which reminds me of dear old Dobbin on my father's farm. "It is a great pleasure to welcome to England so fair a representative of so fine a press."