Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/218

210 “Then it is a bargain. I have just the thousand francs about me.”

“All right, wait for me at the wine shop.”

“I’ll go at once.”

“Only, in passing down there, look you, at the corner of the street, send me that tall fair man, he is the armourer of my regiment. I should tell you that my comrades, for a practical joke, have shut me up here and carried off the key.”

“I will send him.”

The armourer came; a consultation took place between him and the Zephir, at which a neighbouring sentry was presently called to assist; and in half an hour the contract between soldier and emigrant was drawn up and signed.

Two hours after the emigrant arrived with all his goods and chattels, and wanted to take immediate possession of—the regimental prison.

But let it not be supposed that this valuable gift of “cheek” is monopolised by the ruder sex; the fair are endowed with it to at least an equal extent, and in their case it is generally combined with a naïveté which to my mind is peculiarly delightful. The calm way in which a lady will ask an utter stranger to give himself an infinity of trouble for her, or, more frequently, for those in whom she is interested, often excites my envious admiration. If you refuse her—whether from inability or not to grant her request does not matter a straw—she is your personal enemy from that day forth; if, on the contrary, you grant her request, do not look for gratitude, women are I hardly ever grateful to strangers. But if ever you want anything for which people you know nothing about are to be canvassed, whether it be a seat in parliament, or admission into an alms-house, it is to your lady friends you must apply.

Some years ago, before the days of competitive examinations, a lady of title got a government appointment for a friend who had been petitioning and eating humble pie ineffectually for two years, by seating herself on the minister’s doorstep, and declaring she would not budge until her request was granted. What could the poor man do? He could hardly give her into custody, and no one could come in or out of the house without brushing past this guardian of the threshold, dressed in the height of fashion, her parasol up, and an admiring crowd around her. I doubt if even Murtough could have done that.

Nougaret, in his collection of anecdotes, tells a story which shows that French ladies have at least as much “cheek” as their English sisters.

Madame the Vicomtesse de Laval one morning demanded a private audience of Monsieur the president of St. Fargeau, a man of most imperturbable gravity, to whom she announced herself as having come to beg a favour which was necessary to the happiness of her life.

“Madame,” said the polite president, “you will always find me ready to”

“Promise me,” interrupted the lady, “that you will not refuse me.”

“I am certain, Madame,” he began again, “that you will only ask me for what I can grant with propriety; still you know my position. I am, more than others, required to consider the justness of my actions; I must know first what you want.”

The lady begged, prayed, wept, till the poor man, wearied out, said, “Well, I promise,” and instantly regretted the words. “Monsieur,” said the lady, calming down immediately, “I have seen many delicious head-dresses which are to be worn at the court fête next Monday; I much wish to surpass them, and have hit on the idea of a garniture of parrots’ feathers: I have laid all my friends under contribution, and since you have promised not to refuse me, I will trouble you for six feathers from the tail of that remarkably fine Polly I have seen outside your balcony.”

Has any fellow-sufferer from shyness and diffidence read thus far in hopes of meeting with some useful hints? Alas, alas, I can give him none; the cheeky man, like the poet, is born, not made; he springs into the world like Minerva, armed in a panoply of brass. For him are reserved the front seats and liver wings of life; he shoots the game and rides the hunters of his neighbour, and travels in cabs for the legitimate fare. For you and me, my friend, let us take the drumsticks of fowls, the back places of opera-boxes, the garrets of country houses, and the extortions of cabmen with smiling countenances. It is our Fate.

The boughs, the boughs are bare enough, But earth has not yet felt the snow. Frost-fringed our ivies are, and rough

With spiked rime the brambles show, The hoarse leaves crawl on hissing ground, What time the sighing wind is low.

But if the rain-blasts be unbound, And from dank feathers wring the drops, The clogg’d brook runs with choking sound,

Kneading the mounded mire that stops His channel under clammy coats Of foliage fallen in the copse.

A single passage of weak notes Is all the winter bird dare try. The moon, half-orb’d, ere sunset floats

So glassy-white about the sky, So like a berg of hyaline, Pencill’d with blue so daintily—

I never saw her so divine. But thro’ black branches—rarely drest In streaming scarfs that smoothly shine,

Shot o’er with lights—the emblazon’d west, Where yonder crimson fire-ball sets, Trails forth a purfled-silken vest.

Long beds I see of violets In beryl lakes which they reef o’er: A Pactolean river frets

Against its tawny-golden shore: All ways the molten colours run: Till, sinking ever more and more

Into an azure mist, the sun Drops down engulf’d, his journey done. G. M. H.