Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/290



"The United States of America," cried Passepartout, "that's just what I want!"

He followed the man with his placard, and thus soon re-entered the Japanese quarter. A quarter of an hour later, he stopped before a large house surrounded by clusters of streamers, and whose exterior walls represented, without perspective, but in violent colors, a whole company of jugglers.

It was the Honorable Batulcar's establishment, who was a sort of American Barnum, director of a troupe of mountebanks, jugglers, clowns, acrobats, equilibrists, gymnasts, which, according to the placard, was giving its last performance before leaving the Empire of the Sun for the States of the Union.

Passepartout entered under the porch in front of the house, and asked for Honorable Mr. Batulcar. He appeared in person.

"What do you wish?" he said to Passepartout, taking him at first for a native.

"Do you need a servant?" asked Passepartout.

"A servant," cried the Barnum, stroking his thick gray beard hanging heavily under his chin. "I have two, obedient and faithful, who have never left me, and who serve me for nothing, on condition that I feed them. And here they are," he added, showing his two robust arms, furrowed with veins as large as the strings of a bass viol.

"So I can be of no good to you?"

"None."

"The devil! It would have suited me so well to leave with you."

"Ah, I see!" said the Honorable Batulcar. "You are as much a Japanese as I am a monkey! Why are you dressed in this way?"

"One dresses as one can.

"Very true. You are a Frenchman?"