The Launching of Roger Brook

would soon be forced to take, he said:

'Before we go up let's finish our wine.'

Mou-Mou shrugged and poured him another glass. 'As thou wilst. 'Tis not very good, though, and too much of it is apt to give one the wind, so I beg thee to excuse me.'

They sat silent for a few moments, then she said quietly:

'At least, Rojd, thou mightest make up thy mind if thou would'st sup or no, as if so I will order it.'

It was on the tip of his tongue to say 'Yes,' as supping with her would gain him another postponement, but he remembered in time that the cost of a meal would prove too severe a strain on his slender resources. If a box of bon-bons cost five francs supper might easily run him into a couple of louis.

'No,' he blurted out. 'Thank you, but I'm not hungry. I'd rather go up to your room.'

Now that the decision was taken he felt somewhat better about it, and endeavoured to get as much enjoyment as possible out of his wine which, although sweet and insipid, he did not find unpalatable. But directly he set down his glass she stood up and, instinctively, he stood up with her.

Having skirted the dancers they went out into the passage and she led the way upstairs. The salon had been shoddy enough but the upper part of the house seemed like a decayed tenement. Above the first floor the staircase was not carpeted and each of the three flights they ascended grew narrower and more rickety. As he followed her up he saw by the faint light coming from under the ill-fitting doors of the rooms they passed that her shoes were worn down and turned over, and he caught glimpses of rat-holes in the bottom of the wains­coting.

At last, as he paused breathless behind her on a dark and narrow landing, she threw open a door, fumbled for a tinder box, lit two candles and called over her shoulder. 'Come in, cheri.'

On entering he saw that her bedroom was an attic in a state of repellent filth and disorder. The shaded candles, which were on a small dressing-table before a low window, shone on a jumble of rouge pots, hares' feet and soiled face-cloths. The bed was a divan on which the coverings were already rumpled and a half-filled chamber-pot stood unconcealed in one corner. The room looked larger than it actually was owing to a huge mirror that occupied the whole of its one unbroken wall, but it smelt abominably of stale scent and seemed the very antithesis of the sort of place that anyone would have chosen in which to make love.

'Please forgive the untidiness,' Mou-Mou said, on seeing the look of repugnance on his face. 'I have to share this chamber with another girl. We use it turn and turn about, and she is a veritable slut; but I will soon make thee forget all about that.'

As she spoke she undid a single hook at the top of her bodice and her striped blue and white frock slid to the ground, revealing her stark naked.

There was a big bluish bruise on one of her hips and a vivid scar disfigured her stomach. She held out her arms to Roger but he knew now that he could not go through with it. His whole soul revolted at the very thought of touching her.

Swiftly turning his back he pulled out his purse and by the light of the candles fished a guinea from it. Tossing the coin down on the bed he turned, wrenched open the door and fled from the room.

He had hardly gained the stairs before she had sprung out on to the landing after him.

'Come back!' she cried. 'Of what are you afraid? How dare you treat me thus! Ce n'est pas geniil!'

Then, as he did not heed her, she began to shrill in louder tones: 'A moi! A moi! We have a rat in the house! Stop him! Bar the door!'

Blindly Roger crashed his way down the rickety stairs as though all the devils in hell were behind him. By the time he reached the second landing doors were opening on every side and heads poking out to sec what all the commotion was about. Mou-Mou's cries, now mingled with the foulest abuse, had roused the house. The doors of the salon were flung wide and the 'Widow Scarron' came lumbering through it followed by half a score of her girls and patrons.

As Roger made to dive past her she grabbed him by the arm and with surprising strength jerked him towards her whilst screaming obscenities in his ear.

'Let me gol' he yelled. 'Damn you! Let me go!' and wrenching himself free he bounded towards the last flight of stairs.

'Zadig!' she shouted over his shoulder. 'En garde! Don't let him go until he has paid! A louis, and no less! Do you hear?' And Roger saw that he now had to get past the big negro down in the hall.

For an instant he thought of drawing his sword and attempting to fight his way out into the street, but he realised at once that in such confined quarters he would have little space to use it. Zadig was half crouching there below him with a stout cudgel held ready in his hand, and with bitter fury Roger realised that unless he wanted a smashed pate he must pay up. Pulling forth his purse again he counted out eight crowns and thrust them into the hand of the negro.

'And one for me, Monsieur,' Said Zadig, now grinning from ear to ear once more.

Hastily Roger paid the toll, and the big black unbarred the door.

Out in the street he gulped in the fresh air with indescribable relief; but he had not yet either felt or smelt the last results of his unpremeditated visit to this house of ill-fame. Mou-Mou, whom he had thought so kindhearted and of better instincts than her companions, was waiting for him at her attic window. Immediately he appeared in the street below, with a gutter-bred yell of derision, she emptied the contents of her chamber-pot out on to his head.

The main douche missed him by a couple of feet but he was splashed by the disgusting mess from head to foot and took to his heels with rage and hatred in his heart. The length of his sword proved his final undoing as he had covered only a hundred yards down the nearest side-turning when it got between his legs and sent him a cropper into the gutter.

Picking himself up with a curse he went on more slowly, but his night's adventures were far from over as, having walked the length of two short streets which he thought would bring him to the Arsenal, he then discovered that he was hopelessly lost and had not the faintest idea how to get back to Les Trois Fleur-de- Lys.

In those times the civic authorities had not yet taken upon them­selves the responsibility for either maintaining a proper street-lighting system or for clearing away refuse. The only light came from dimly burning lanterns on occasional street corners or over the porches of the richer private houses, and most of the latter were extinguished when their inmates went to bed. At this hour long canyons of pitch blackness separated the widely- dispersed little pools of yellow light; so the midnight wayfarer had to grope his way from one to another, as best he could, through pavementless streets often so narrow as to permit the passage of one coach only at a time and all Uttered by the accumulation of household rubbish that had been thrown out into the gutters.

Few honest citizens ever ventured out at night, unless compelled to do so, and Roger knew that the only people he was likely to meet were drunken roisterers or lurking thieves, so it would be an added peril to show himself unnecessarily and there would be a certain risk in asking his way of anyone he might come upon.

The cool night air had at first refreshed him after the sickly heat of the brothel, but it now began to affect him unexpectedly, and he realised that owing to his having consumed the best part of a bottle of indifferent champagne he was now a little drunk.

Pulling himself together on the corner of the street which he had believed would bring him to the Arsenal he decided that, although it had already been dark when he left the inn with De Roubec, if he could regain the waterfront he should be able to find his way back. After trying two streets he came out on a quay and turned in what he believed to be the right direction. The faint sound of violins caught his ear and soon guided him back to the 'Widow Scarron's.' Giving the house a wide berth he continued onward but, having visited Monsieur Tricot's gaming-rooms before going to the brothel had confused him in his bearings, so he was now actually walking away from the inn instead of towards it.

The docks and quays of Le Havre are very extensive so he went on quite confidently for some twenty minutes before he began to suspect that he had somehow gone wrong. Now and then he had heard footsteps in the distance or seen a lurking figure momentarily emerge from the shadows, but nobody had attempted to molest him as, in the gloom, with his long sword sticking out from under the skirts of his coat he had the appearance of a