Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/62

34 the ocean and the antipodes; carnation-colored shells, scented fruit for Laurent, and for Siska some material from the far East, a Japanese jewel, a cannibal's amulet. Tilbak told of his adventures, and so great was the pleasure that Laurent derived from these tales that when the teller had exhausted his repertoire of true ones, he had to draw upon his imagination. And woe to him should he decide to abridge them, or alter a single detail! Laurent did not permit any variants, and implacably recalled the primitive version. Happily for the willing rhapsodist, the little tyrant, in spite of his vigilance and his curiosity, would fall asleep. Siska would then put him to bed in a little room next to the master's. And then the two friends, relieved of their beloved though occasionally annoying witness, could talk of other things than shipwrecks, whales, white bears and cannibals.

One time when they thought he was fast asleep, before Siska had taken him upstairs, Laurent half woke up at the sound of a sonorous kiss immediately followed by a slap no less generously administered. The kiss was Vincent's work, the blow, Siska's. Good old Vincent! Laurent inter f erred in the quarrel and reconciled the two friends before going back to sleep for good. At other times Siska wickedly chided the good-natured fellow on account of his acrid tobacco, which made her cough, she said, and which smelled up the whole house. One should have seen the contrite and appealing face, at once radiant and abashed, of this "tar-coat," as Siska called him.

And it was this Vincent, this bewitching Vincent, whose cap and loosely hanging oilskins, whose large turned-down collar and high boots dazzled him to the point of making him wish to become a cabin-boy, that