That abode is now his, and lordlier than ever, as becomes the dwelling of a millionaire and city magnate; and its gray-bearded owner is as genial, as jolly, and as hospitable as in the old Paris days, but he no longer colors pipes.
Then there was Carnegie, fresh from Balliol, redolent of the ’varsity. He intended himself then for the diplomatic service, and came to Paris to learn French as it is spoke; and spent most of his time with his fashionable English friends on the right side of the river, and the rest with Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee on the left. Perhaps that is why he has not become an ambassador. He is now only a rural dean, and speaks the worst French I know, and speaks it wherever and whenever he can.
It serves him right, I think.
He was fond of lords, and knew some (at least, he gave one that impression), and often talked of them, and dressed so beautifully that even Little Billee was abashed in his presence. Only Taffy, in his threadbare out-at-elbow shooting-jacket and cricket cap, and the Laird, in his tattered straw hat and Taffy’s old overcoat down to his heels, dared to walk arm in arm with him—nay, insisted on doing so—as they listened to the band in the Luxembourg Gardens.
And his whiskers were even longer and thicker and more golden than Taffy’s own. But the mere sight of a boxing-glove made him sick.
Then there was the yellow-haired Antony, a Swiss—the idle apprentice, le “roi des truands,” as we called him—to whom everything was forgiven, as to François Villon, à cause de ses gentillesses surely, for all his reprehensible pranks, the gentlest and most lovable creature that ever lived in bohemia, or out of it.
Always in debt, like Svengali—for he had no more notion of the value of money than a hummingbird, and gave away in reckless generosity to friends what in strictness belonged to his endless creditors—like Svengali, humorous, witty, and a most exquisite and original artist, and also somewhat eccentric in his attire (though scrupulously clean), so that people would stare at him as he walked along—a thing that always gave him dire offence! But unlike Svengali, full of delicacy, refinement, and distinction of mind and manner—void of any self-conceit—and, in spite of the irregularities of his life, the very soul of truth and honor, as gentle as he was chivalrous and brave—the warmest, stanchest, sincerest, most unselfish friend in the world; and, as long as his purse was full, the best and drollest boon companion in the world—but that was not forever!
When the money was gone, then would Antony hie him to some beggarly attic in some lost Parisian slum, and write his own epitaph in lovely French or German verse—or even English (for he was an astounding linguist); and, telling himself that he was forsaken by family, friends, and mistress alike, look out of his casement over the Paris chimney-pots for the last time, and listen once more to “the harmonies of nature,” as he called it—and “aspire towards the infinite,” and bewail “the cruel deceptions of his life”—and finally lay himself down to die of sheer starvation.
And as he lay and waited for his release that was so long in coming, he would beguile the weary hours by mumbling a crust “watered with his own salt tears,” and decorating his epitaph with fanciful designs of the most exquisite humor, pathos, and beauty—these illustrated epitaphs of the young Antony, of which there exists a goodly number, are now priceless, as all collectors know all over the world.
Fainter and fainter would he grow—and finally, on the third day or thereabouts, a remittance would reach him from some long-suffering sister or aunt in far Lausanne—or else the fickle mistress or faithless friend (who had been looking for him all over Paris) would discover his hiding-place, the beautiful epitaph would be walked off in triumph to le père Marcas in the Rue du Ghette and sold for twenty, fifty, a hundred francs—and then Vogue la galére! And back again to bohemia, dear bohemia and all its joys, as long as the money lasted … e poi, da capo!
And now that his name is a household word in two hemispheres, and he himself an honor and a glory to the land he has adopted as his own, he loves to remember all this and look back from the lofty pinnacle on which he sits perched up aloft to the impecunious days of his idle apprenticeship—le bon temps où l’on ètait si malheureux!
And with all that quixotic dignity of his, so famous is he as a wit that when he jokes (and he is always joking) people laugh first, and then ask what he was joking about. And you can even make your own mild funniments raise a roar by merely prefacing them “as Antony once said!”
The present scribe has often done so.
And if by a happy fluke you should some day hit upon a really good thing of your own—good enough to be quoted—be sure it will come back to you after many days prefaced “as Antony once said.”
And these jokes are so good-natured that you almost resent their being made at anybody’s expense but your own—never from Antony
“The aimless jest that striking has caused pain,
The idle word that he’d wish back again!”
Indeed, in spite of his success, I don’t suppose he ever made an enemy in his life.
And here, let me add (lest there be any doubt as to his identity), that he is now tall and stout and strikingly handsome, though rather bald—and such an aristocrat in bearing, aspect, and manner that you would take him for a blue-blooded descendant of the crusaders instead of the son of a respectable burgher in Lausanne.
Then there was Lorrimer, the industrious apprentice, who
