A Start in Life

“Ah!” said Pere Leger.

“I only stayed three days in the town and fifteen in prison,” said Schinner, “so I saw nothing; not even the fields where they grow the maraschino.”

“They are fooling you,” said Georges to the farmer. “Maraschino comes in cases.”

“‘Romances alter cases,’” remarked Mistigris.

CHAPTER V. THE DRAMA BEGINS

Pierrotin’s vehicle was now going down the steep incline of the valley of Saint-Brice to the inn which stands in the middle of the large village of that name, where Pierrotin was in the habit of stopping an hour to breathe his horses, give them their oats, and water them. It was now about half-past one o’clock.

“Ha! here’s Pere Leger,” cried the inn-keeper, when the coach pulled up before the door. “Do you breakfast?”

“Always once a day,” said the fat farmer; “and I’ll break a crust here and now.”

“Give us a good breakfast,” cried Georges, twirling his cane in a cavalier manner which excited the admiration of poor Oscar.

But that admiration was turned to jealousy when he saw the gay adventurer pull out from a side-pocket a small straw case, from which he selected a light-colored cigar, which he proceeded to smoke on the threshold of the inn door while waiting for breakfast.

“Do you smoke?” he asked of Oscar.

“Sometimes,” replied the ex-schoolboy, swelling out his little chest and assuming a jaunty air.

Georges presented the open case to Oscar and Schinner.

“Phew!” said the great painter; “ten-sous cigars!”

“The remains of those I brought back from Spain,” said the adventurer. “Do you breakfast here?”

“No,” said the artist. “I am expected at the chateau. Besides, I took something at the Lion d’Argent just before starting.”

“And you?” said Georges to Oscar.

“I have breakfasted,” replied Oscar.

Oscar would have given ten years of his life for boots and straps to his trousers. He sneezed, he coughed, he spat, and swallowed the smoke with ill-disguised grimaces.

“You don’t know how to smoke,” said Schinner; “look at me!”

With a motionless face Schinner breathed in the smoke of his cigar and let it out through his nose without the slightest contraction of feature. Then he took another whiff, kept the smoke in his throat, removed the cigar from his lips, and allowed the smoke slowly and gracefully to escape them.

“There, young man,” said the great painter.

“Here, young man, here’s another way; watch this,” said Georges, imitating Schinner, but swallowing the smoke and exhaling none.

“And my parents believed they had educated me!” thought Oscar, endeavoring to smoke with better grace.

But his nausea was so strong that he was thankful when Mistigris filched his cigar, remarking, as he smoked it with evident satisfaction, “You haven’t any contagious diseases, I hope.”

Oscar in reply would fain have punched his head.

“How he does spend money!” he said, looking at Colonel Georges. “Eight francs for Alicante and the cheese-cakes; forty sous for cigars; and his breakfast will cost him – ”

“Ten francs at least,” replied Mistigris; “but that’s how things are. ‘Sharp stomachs make short purses.’”

“Come, Pere Leger, let us drink a bottle of Bordeaux together,” said Georges to the farmer.

“Twenty francs for his breakfast!” cried Oscar; “in all, more than thirty-odd francs since we started!”

Killed by a sense of his inferiority, Oscar sat down on a stone post, lost in a revery which did not allow him to perceive that his trousers, drawn up by the effect of his position, showed the point of junction between the old top of his stocking and the new “footing,” – his mother’s handiwork.

“We are brothers in socks,” said Mistigris, pulling up his own trousers sufficiently to show an effect of the same kind, – “‘By the footing, Hercules.’”

The count, who overheard this, laughed as he stood with folded arms under the porte-cochere, a little behind the other travellers. However nonsensical these lads might be, the grave statesman envied their very follies; he liked their bragging and enjoyed the fun of their lively chatter.

“Well, are you to have Les Moulineaux? for I know you went to Paris to get the money for the purchase,” said the inn-keeper to Pere Leger, whom he had just taken to the stables to see a horse he wanted to sell to him. “It will be queer if you manage to fleece a peer of France and a minister of State like the Comte de Serizy.”

The person thus alluded to showed no sign upon his face as he turned to look at the farmer.

“I’ve done for him,” replied Pere Leger, in a low voice.

“Good! I like to see those nobles fooled. If you should want twenty thousand francs or so, I’ll lend them to you – But Francois, the conductor of Touchard’s six o’clock coach, told me that Monsieur Margueron was invited by the Comte de Serizy to dine with him to-day at Presles.”

“That was the plan of his Excellency, but we had our own little ways of thwarting it,” said the farmer, laughing.

“The count could appoint Monsieur Margueron’s son, and you haven’t any place to give, – remember that,” said the inn-keeper.

“Of course I do; but if the count has the ministry on his side, I have King Louis XVIII.,” said Pere Leger, in a low voice. “Forty thousand of his pictures on coin of the realm given to Moreau will enable me to buy Les Moulineaux for two hundred and sixty thousand, money down, before Monsieur de Serizy can do so. When he finds the sale is made, he’ll be glad enough to buy the farm for three hundred and sixty thousand, instead of letting me cut it up in small lots right in the heart of his property.”

“Well done, bourgeois!” cried the inn-keeper.

“Don’t you think that’s good play?” said Leger.

“Besides,” said the inn-keeper, “the farm is really worth that to him.”

“Yes; Les Moulineaux brings in to-day six thousand francs in rental. I’ll take another lease of it at seven thousand five hundred for eighteen years. Therefore it is really an investment at more than two and a half per cent. The count can’t complain of that. In order not to involve Moreau, he is himself to propose me as tenant and farmer; it gives him a look of acting for his master’s interests by finding him nearly three per cent for his money, and a tenant who will pay well.”

“How much will Moreau make, in all?”

“Well, if the count gives him ten thousand francs for the transaction the matter will bring him fifty thousand, – and well-earned, too.”

“After all, the count, so they tell me, doesn’t like Presles. And then he is so rich, what does it matter what it costs him?” said the inn-keeper. “I have never seen him, myself.”

“Nor I,” said Pere Leger. “But he must be intending to live there, or why should he spend two hundred thousand francs in restoring the chateau? It is as fine now as the King’s own palace.”

“Well, well,” said the inn-keeper, “it was high time for Moreau to feather his nest.”

“Yes, for if the masters come there,” replied Leger, “they won’t keep their eyes in their pockets.”