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

The stranger profited by his sneezing again and twitching his features, shut the blinds though not the windows.

Looking round him the master locksmith recognized with the profound gratitude of drinking men for old haunts, the saloon where he had feasted before. In his frequent trip to town from Versailles, he had not seldom halted here. It might be thought necessary, as the house was halfway.

This gratitude produced its effect: it gave him a great confidence to find himself on friendly ground.

“Hurrah, it looks as though I were halfway home anyway,” he exclaimed.

“Yes, thanks to me,” said the stranger.

“Thanks to you? why, who are you?” stammered Gamain, looking from still life to animated things.

“My dear Gamain, your question shows that you have a poor memory.”

“Hold on,” said the smith, giving him more attention: “it strikes me that I have seen you before.”

“You don’t say so? that is a blessed thing.”

“Ay, but where – that is the rub.”

“Look around you, then; something may remind you; or had you better have some more of the counterbane to refresh you?”

“No, thank ’ee, I have had enough of that remedy,” said Gamain, stretching his arms out. “I am so nearly brought round that I will do without it. Where did I see you? why, in this very spot, of course. And when? the day I was coming back from doing a special job at Paris – I seem to be in for this sort of thing,” added he, chuckling.

“Very well: but who am I?”

“A jolly honest mate who paid for the liquor. Shake hands!”

“Good, good, you remember now.”

“With all the more pleasure as it is but a step from Master locksmith to master gunsmith,” said the other.

“Ah, good, good, I remember now. Yes, it was the sixth of October, when the King went to Paris: we talked about him.”

“And I found your conversation interesting, Master Gamain; so that, as your memory comes home and I want to enjoy it again, I should like to know, if I am not too inquisitive, what the deuse you were doing across the road where a vehicle might have cut you in two? Have you sorrows, old blade, and had you screwed up your mind to suicide?”

“Faith, no! What was I doing flat across the road, eh? Was I in the road?”

“Look at your clothes.”

“Whew!” whistled Gamain after the inspection. “Mother Gamain will kick up a hullabaloo for she said yesterday: ‘Don’t put on your new coat; any old thing will do for the Tuileries.'”

“Hello? been to the Tuileries? were you coming from the Tuileries when I picked you up?” asked the kind soul.

“Why, yes, that’s about the size of it,” responded Gamain, scratching his head and trying to collect his entangled ideas; “certainly I was coming home from the Tuileries. Why not? It is no mystery that I am master locksmith to Master Veto.”

“Who is he?”

“Why, have you come from China? not to know old Veto?”

“What do you want? I am obliged to stick to my trade, and that is not politics.”

“You are blamed lucky! I have to mix up with these high folk – more’s the pity! or rather, they force me to mix with them. It will be my ruin.” He sighed as he looked up to heaven.

“Pshaw! were you called to Paris again to do another piece of work in the style of that other one?” asked the friend.

“But this time I was not blindfolded but taken with my eyes open.”

“So that you knew it was the Tuileries this time?”

“The Tuileries? who said anything about the Tuileries?”

“Why, you, of course, just now. How would I know where you had been carousing had you not told me?”

“That is true,” muttered Gamain to himself; “how should he, unless I told him? Perhaps,” he said aloud, “I was wrong to let you know; but you are not like the rest. Besides I am not going to deny that I was at the Tuileries.”

“And you did some work for the King, for which he gave you twenty five louis,” went on the other.

“Indeed, I had twenty-five shiners in my pouch,” said Gamain.

“Then, you have got them now, my friend.”

The smith quickly plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled it out full of gold mixed with small change in silver and bronze.

“To think that I had forgot it! twenty-five is a good bit, too – and it is right to the ‘broken’ louis – one does not pick up such a lot under the horse’s foot. Thank God the account is correct.” And he breathed more freely.

“My dear Master Gamain, I told you I found you on the King’s highway, not twenty paces from a heavy wagon which would have cut you in twain. I shouted for the carrier to pull up; I called a passing cab; I unhooked one of the lamps and as I looked at you by its light, I caught sight of a gold piece on the ground; as they were near your pocket, I judged that you had dropped them. I put my finger in the pocket and as there were a score of their brothers in bed there I guessed that these were of the same brood. Thereupon the hack driver shook his head. ‘I ain’t going to take this fare,’ said he: ‘he is too rich for his dress. Twenty louis in gold in a cotton waistcoat suggests that the gallows will be his end.’ ‘What,’ says I, ‘do you take him for a thief?’ The word struck you, for you says. ‘Thief? you are another!’ says you. ‘So you must be a prig,’ returned the coachman, ‘or how would the likes of you have a pocket gold-lined, say?’

“'I have money because my pupil the King of France gave it me,’ said you. By these words I thought I recognized you, and clasping the lamp to your nose, I cried: ‘Bless us and save us: all is clear; this is Master Gamain, master locksmith at Versailles. He has been working in the royal forge and the King has given him twenty-five mint-drops for his trouble. All right: I will answer for him.’ From the moment that I answered for you, the driver raised no objections. I replaced the coins in your pocket; we laid you snugly in the hack; and we set you down in this retreat so that you have nothing to complain of except that your ‘prentice left you in the lurch.”

“Did I speak of my ’prentice? that he left me in the lurch?” questioned Gamain, more and more astonished.

“Why, hang it all, are you going back on what you said? Did you not growl that it was all the fault of – of – dash me if I can remember the name you used.”

“Louis Lecomte?”

“I guess that was it. Did you not say: ‘Louis Lecomte is in fault! for he promised to see me safe home and at the last moment he dropped me like a hot roll?'”

“I daresay I did so, for it is the blessed truth.”

“Then, why do you deny the truth? let me tell you, that with another than me, such chatter would be dangerous?”

“But with you, one is safe, eh? with a regular friend,” said the smith, coaxingly.

“Lord, you have lots of trust in your friend. You say yes and you say no; you wiggle and waver so that none knows how to have you. It is like your fable t’other day about the secret door that a nobleman had you fit on the strict quiet.”

“Then you will not believe this tale either, for it also hangs upon a door.”

“In the palace?”