Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/42

 Paris, he carried Dumas's heart and hopes with him.

The months passed, and doleful news came from headquarters to the would-be dramatist. The Parisian managers seemed strangely blind to their own best interests. At this juncture Dumas was promoted to a clerkship with one M. Lefévre, a Crépy notary, and it was from this town that he entered, with his accustomed impetuosity, into one of those rash enterprises of which youth is so commonly guilty, and which so often appear afterwards in the light of inspirations.

A comrade named Paillet came one day to Dumas and proposed that in the absence of M. Lefévre, who was about to pay a three days' visit to Paris, they, too, should take a holiday in that city. It was one of those mad, impossible schemes which always recommended themselves to Dumas. Two clerks, with thirty-five francs between them, were to set out to do the forty or fifty miles to Paris, enjoy themselves in the city, and return—in seventy-two hours! But Dumas's ingenuity was equal to the problem. Paillet had a horse, and the two youths used it alternately. That halved the walking distance. The one on foot carried the gun, and the game that they shot on the way was to pay for their food in Paris. Whenever they sighted a keeper, one rode off with the game and gun, the