“So your Dalmatians yelled in French?” said the Count. “You describe the scene as if it had happened yesterday.”
Schinner was for the moment dumbfounded.
“The mob speaks the same language everywhere,” said Mistigris the politician.
“Finally,” Schinner went on again, “when I was in the local Court of Justice and in the presence of the judges of that country, I was informed that the diabolical corsair was dead, poisoned by Zéna.—How I wished I could put on a clean shirt!
“On my soul, I knew nothing about this melodrama. It would seem that the fair Greek was wont to add a little opium—poppies are so plentiful there, as monsieur has told you—to her pirate’s grog to secure a few minutes’ liberty to take a walk, and the night before the poor woman had made a mistake in the dose. It was the damned corsair’s money that made the trouble for my Zéna; but she accounted for everything so simply, that I was released at once on the strength of the old woman’s affidavit, with an order from the Mayor of the town and the Austrian Commissioner of Police to remove myself to Rome. Zéna, who allowed the heirs and the officers of the law to help themselves liberally to the Uscoque’s wealth, was let off, I was told, with two years’ seclusion in a convent, where she still is.—I will go back and paint her portrait, for in a few years everything will be forgotten.—And these are the follies of eighteen!”
“Yes, and you left me without a sou in the locanda at Venice,” said Mistigris. “I made my way from Venice to Rome, to see if I could find you, by daubing portraits at five francs a head, and never got paid; but it was a jolly time! Happiness, they say, does not dwell under gilt hoofs.”
“You may imagine the reflections that choked me with bile in a Dalmatian prison, thrown there without a protector, having to answer to the Dalmatian Austrians, and threatened with the loss of my head for having twice taken a walk with a woman who insisted on being followed by her housekeeper. That is what I call bad luck!” cried Schinner.
“What,” said Oscar guilelessly, “did that happen to you?”
“Why not to this gentleman, since it had already happened during the French occupation of Illyria to one of our most distinguished artillery officers?” said the Count with meaning.
“And did you believe the artillery man?” asked Mistigris slyly.
“And is that all?” asked Oscar.
“Well,” said Mistigris, “he cannot tell you that he had his head cut off. Those who live last live longest.”
“And are there any farms out there?” asked old Léger. “What do they grow there?”
“There is the Maraschino crop,” said Mistigris. “A plant that grows just as high as your lips and yields the liqueur of that name.”
“Ah!” said Léger.
“I was only three days in the town and a fortnight in prison,” replied Schinner. “I saw nothing, not even the fields where they grow the Maraschino.”
“They are making game of you,” said Georges to the farmer. “Maraschino grows in cases.”
Pierrotin’s chaise was now on the way down one of the steep sides of the valley of Saint-Brice, towards the inn in the middle of that large village, where he was to wait an hour to let the horses take breath, eat their oats, and get a drink. It was now about half-past one.
“Hallo! It is farmer Léger!” cried the innkeeper, as the vehicle drew up at his door. “Do you take breakfast?”
“Once every day,” replied the burly customer. “We can eat a snack.”
“Order breakfast for us,” said Georges, carrying his cane as if he were shouldering a musket, in a cavalier style that bewitched Oscar.
Oscar felt a pang of frenzy when he saw this reckless adventurer take a fancy straw cigar-case out of his side pocket, and from it a beautiful tan-colored cigar, which he smoked in the doorway while waiting for the meal.
“Do you smoke?” said Georges to Oscar.
“Sometimes,” said the schoolboy, puffing out his little chest and assuming a dashing style.
Georges held out the open cigar-case to Oscar and to Schinner.
“The devil!” said the great painter. “Ten-sous cigars!”
“The remains of what I brought from Spain,” said the adventurer. “Are you going to have breakfast?”
“No,” said the artist. “They will wait for me at the château. Besides, I had some food before starting.”
“And you,” said Georges to Oscar.
“I have had breakfast,” said Oscar.
Oscar would have given ten years of his life to have boots and trouser-straps. He stood sneezing, and choking, and spitting, and sucking up the smoke with ill-disguised grimaces.
“You don’t know how to smoke,” said Schinner. “Look here,” and Schinner, without moving a muscle, drew in the smoke of his cigar and blew it out through his nose without the slightest effort. Then again he kept the smoke in his throat, took the cigar out of his mouth, and exhaled it gracefully.
“There,
