Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/180

 composer, struggling vainly to get from the busy writer an opera-comique libretto which our good-natured author had undertaken to do, heard of the facts of the case. He learnt, moreover, that Dumas was dodging his military pursuers by sleeping in different houses, entering by side-doors, and departing by windows, "as if he wanted to be a fairy, and was rehearsing the part." Monpeou, for his own base ends, "gave information which led to the capture of the criminal." (It appeared that Dumas had aggravated his offence by an answer which he gave to a superior officer—one of his own tradesmen!—who, with more feeling than culture, declared that it was very "painible and terrible" for him to be obliged to arrest Dumas; to which that gentleman promptly replied, "Do you think it wouldn't be painful and terriful to me to go?") Monpeou begged that Dumas should have a private room to work in, and a piano, and when the prisoner arrived to undergo his punishment he found the traitorous musician busy composing the overture to the comic opera! The result was "Piquillo."

One last touch to complete the picture of "Dumas at work," not forgetting the invariable companion of his labours—the tea of which he drank such inordinate quantities. Mr Albert Vandam, in his "Englishman in Paris," describes a call which he made on his friend Dumas.