The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

“I want it to-day – this evening – right now!” yelled the innocent in a tearful voice which threatened stormy weather.

“Toussaint, my boy, I advise you to give us quiet or papa will take you in hand,” said the parent.

The boy yelled again but more from deviltry than from fear.

“You drunken sot, you just touch my darling, and I will attend to you,” said the mother, stretching out the white hand towards the bully which her care of the nails made to become a claw at need.

“Who the deuse wants to touch the imp? you know it is only my style of speaking, my dear Oliva, and that though I may dust your skirt now and then I have always respected the kid’s jacket. Tut, tut, come and embrace your poor Beausire who will be rich as a King in a week; come, my little Nicole.”

“When you are rich as a king, it will be another matter: but up to that time no fooling.”

“But I tell you that it is as safe as if I had a million. You might be kind for a little while. Go and get credit of the baker.”

“A man rolling in millions wants a baker to let him have a loaf on trust, ha, ha!”

“I want some red barely sugar,” howled the child.

“Come, you king with the millions, give some sugar sticks to your prince.”

Beausire started to put his hand to his fob but stopped half way.

“You know I gave you my last piece yesterday.”

“Then, if you have the money,” said the child to the woman whom Beausire called indifferently Nicole or Oliva, “give me a penny to buy candy.”

“There are two cents, you naughty boy, and mind you do not fall in sliding down the bannisters.”

“Thank you, dear mother,” said the boy, capering for joy and holding out his hand.

“Come here till I set your hat on and adjust your sash: it must not be said that Captain Beausire let his son race about the streets in disorder – though it is all the same to him, the heartless fellow! I should die of shame!”

At the risk of whatever the neighbors might say against the heir to the Beausire name, the boy would have dispensed with the hat and band, of which he recognized the use before the other urchins did the freshness and beauty. But as the arrangement of his dress was a condition of the gift, the young Hector had to yield to it.

He consoled himself by taunting his father with the coin by thrusting it up under his nose; absorbed in his figuring the parent merely smiled at the pretty freak.

Soon they heard his timid step, though quickened by gluttony, descending the stairs.

“Now then, Captain Beausire,” snapped the woman after a pause, “your wits must lift us out of this miserable position, or else I must have recourse to mine.”

She spoke with a toss of the head as much as to say: “A lady of my lovely face never dies of starvation, never fear!”

“Just what I am busy about, my little Nicole,” responded Beausire.

“By shuffling the cards?”

“Did I not tell you that I have found the infallible coup?”

“At it again, eh? Captain Beausire, I warn you that I am going to hunt up my old acquaintances and see if one of them cannot have you shut up in the madhouse. Dear, dear, if Lord Richelieu were not dead, if Cardinal Rohan were not ruined, if Lady Lamotte Valois were not in London dodging the sheriff’s officers – “

“What are you talking about?”

“I should find means and not be obliged to share the misery of an old swashbuckler like this one.”

With a queenly flirt of the hand Oliva alias Nicole Legay, disdainfully indicated the gambler.

“But I keep telling you that I shall be rich to-morrow,” he repeated, himself at any rate convinced.

“Show me the first gold piece of your million and I shall believe the rest.”

“You will see ten gold pieces this evening – the very sum promised me. You can have five to buy a silk dress and a velvet suit for the youngster: with the balance I will bring you the million I promised.”

“You unhappy fellow, you mean to gamble again?”

“But I tell you again that I have lit on an infallible sequence.”

“Own brother to the one with which you threw away the sixty thousand livres from the amount you stole at the Portuguese Ambassador’s?”

“Money got over the devil’s back goes under his belly,” replied Beausire sententiously. “I always did think that the way I got that cash brought bad luck.”

“Is this fresh lot coming from an inheritance? have you an uncle who has died in the Indies or America and left you the ten louis?”

“Nicole Legay,” rejoined Beausire with a lofty air, “these ten will be earned not only honestly but honorably, for a cause which interests me as well as the rest of the nobility of France.”

“So you are a nobleman, Friend Beausire?” jeered the lady.

“You may say so: we have it stated so in the birth entry on the register of St. Paul’s, and signed by your servitor, Jean Baptiste Toussaint de Beausire, on the day when I gave my name to our boy – “

“A handsome present that was,” gibed Nicole.

“And my estate,” added the so-called captain emphatically.

“If kind heaven does not send him something more solid,” interposed Nicole, shaking her head, “the poor little dear is sure to live on air and die in the poorhouse.”

“Really, Nicole, this is too much to endure – you are never contented.”

“Endure? good gracious, who wants you to endure?” exclaimed the reduced gentlewoman, breaking down the dam to her long-restrained ire: “Thank God, I am not worried about myself or my little pet, and this very night I shall go forth and seek my fortune.”

She rose and took three steps towards the door, but he strode in between them and opened his arms to bar the way.

“You naughty creature, did I not tell you that my fortune – “

“Go on,” said Nicole.

“Is coming home to-night: though the coup were a mistake – which is impossible, it would only be five louis lost.”

“There are times when a few pieces of money are a fortune, sir. But you would not know that, who have squandered a pile of gold as high as this house.”

“That proves my merit: I made it at the cards, and if I made some once I shall make more another time: besides, there is a special providence for – smart rogues.”