Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/244

 ONCE A WEEK.

236 tho

rate

that

years

philosophic ges aro

to help his Imperial Majesty rity of the

ill

.

M

the

bring

millioi

compels him to borrow. of the concierge are bearable.

1

ti

are

You pay when you return

a load of wood.

ith half

.

him

when you

log

•iggest

gratification

[night. 1

You cannot

help the

up between him and

.rings

know when

the price of ruarrelled with the cobbler over his Every detail of .lending your shoes. i
 * h for your pocket ; and

t

.

,

•

his property.

is

Bordeaux at twenty-five sous the knows it and it is only when you have friends, you go even as far as Beaune. The boo dear in the market to-day for Irink

ind he



the cook has told



of the head



i

him

so with a toss

and he holds that you are Men friend out at elbow has paid and went out arm-in-arm with you, The landlord has called three you.

It is the privilege of the o be posted up in the doings of the

for his rent.

see,

and of the front

staircase, of

your

You furnish Sunday afternoon him, and his friends. The oyster-woman, who sits with her fish ly packed in straw, waiting for customers corner of the street, elbow to elbow with the vendor of roasted chesnuts this buxom old lady, who has the firmest thumb I ever d opening an oyster has been in this street of the fashionable west of Paris (to a noted myself from the Quatresnt.

q to

—

•



it

L-twenty years. Rubbing the comer-stone of the Rue ire

heard the

of the

1848

days of July caught "Mourir pom- la Patrie," in nee of the





it li

She

thumb

that is

he*

She the cooks and

!I

rgea

in

anow-

ti

packed,

iitly iii



,

Calli

the

into

her net

M that l r '

'

i

"

"' N '

»

lain,

iiui

ion, ii

Clemonce ?"



I

but,

[Fer. 20, 1S64.

Clemence makes a theatrical start, and will Madame can be ignorant of the " Buisson.

not believe that

name of Madame

' '

cries

Clemence,

Why, Madame,"

she has been in the street

twenty-five years." " Madame. " Possibly but what is she ? " the Clemence. oysterWhy, Madame, woman at the corner of the Rue de Grevuhle."

No concierge would deprive himself of the Buisson's acpleasure and profit of Madame Nor would the lady think for quaintance. one moment of shortening her supply of scandal,

by offending a man who held the key of a house.

west end concierge was one of Madame I lived in a very short Buisson's intimates. street, and from my balcony I could distinctly

My

When I threw see all that was passing in it. the windows open in the early morning, the concierge was cooling his feverish nose on the doorstep



or talking with the man who was the shutters of his favourite wine-

taking down

" morning's shop, where he had just sipped his refresher." He would sit on the form by the wine-shop door and cast his bleared eyes over the great house opposite, that was his domain. I felt that his eye rested occasionally

upon

me, and that I must be on my best behaviour. He was an excellent sample of the concierge, dressed in a very short, square cut, dress coat, of a mouldy-greenish hue, a waistcoat brightened with metal buttons, blue trousers, and, snuff-brown in the early morning, sabots. baggy cap covered his wise head, with the peak

A

of

it

put sideways, that it might not impede There w ere not many varia-

his observations.

tions in his

r

He had a morning performance. wood and coke merchant,

greeting with the

who was stacking logs in his black shed. The baker halted, with the loaves towering far above The patient head, to exchange news. auvergnat, ambling along with his cans of water slung across his shoulder, answered his mornlaughter, my ing pleasantry for, by the

his



—

at least he concierge could say good things, laughed at them very much himself, and appeared to be rewarded from time to time with

a coup, offered to him by some grateful friend of the street. It was worth an hour spent on my balcony to see the Rabelaisian content and chuckle with which, when invited to the

and powter bar, he followed his entertainer the bonhommie with which he slapped his momentary host on the back as they came forth, after a few minutes, and he resumed his n the form. We used to call him the

He caught many flies in bhe course of morning, when he was not called from his

spider. thr

by

l

he piercing voice of his better half, across the road to pe

summoning him