Clarksville Evening Chronicle

A BORROWED FARE

M. Aristides Dufour, retired mercer, a widower with one daughter, is seated in his dining room, near a set table, at which from time to time he throws a despairing glance. He holds his paper before him, but it is scarcely probable that he reads it, for he has held it upside down for a good minute and has not yet discovered his mistake. Behind his green spectacles, the ex-mercer's impatient, preoccupied glance falls ten times to the minute on the old china cuckoo clock, which, without hurrying, without lagging, goes on its quiet way and repeats its monotonous tic-tac. Then the above mentioned glance falls again on the tureen in which the soup is growing cold. And the glance grows tender, as his nostrils are assailed by the appetizing vapors that escape from beneath the lid.

There are two covers at the table, and two chairs extend their backs invitingly to the diners. M. Dufour is waiting for some one, some one who makes him wait. But, like the late Louis XIV., whom he resembles, perhaps, in this particular alone, the ex-mercer does not enjoy this, especially when the companion of his vigil is a repast which has nothing to gain from such a delay.

Promptness at table, as in business, is his hobby; he is no longer in business, the worthy man, but he still eats. Breakfast and dinner are, to him, so many notes of hand, coming in at fixed hours, and which he must honor as he would his signature. At those hours M. Aristides Dufour fills his stomach, dutifully, conscientiously, with the same punctuality that he formerly observed in emptying his strong box on the 15th and 30th days of the month.

And when you know that the cuckoo clock is on the point of sounding half-past 6, you can form an approximate idea of the violent state in which M. Aristides Dufour, retired mercer, widower with a single daughter, found himself at the opening of this veracious history; and especially since he has been waiting for his daughter before sitting down to table, since five minutes before 6 o'clock.

Never since M. Dufour retired from business (that is to say, since he had the misfortune to lose his incomparable wife, Mme. Celine Dufour, born Robichon, who was, at the same time, his clerk and his partner) had such a catastrophe fallen upon his peaceful house. Not to have tasted his dessert at half-past 6! for that hour was about to strike, it was striking, it had struck. Half-past 6!

The little door of the rustic clock has opened wide, the mocking bird, flapping his wings, has hurled out his "cuckoo" in a particularly ironical voice.

To see, for forty-five minutes past, an excellent soup losing all its good qualities at a few feet away, and, in the bargain, not to know what good or bad his dear little Charlotte was doing—it was a cruel torture, in which to anguish of the heart was added cramps of the stomach. Never had M. Dufour been so near to comprehending a suicide's motives. His glance, now become a little wild, wandered over the table, vaguely seeking among the knives, the forks and the spoons the instrument with which he would put an end to this horrible suspense.

At this moment Gertrude, the old servant, monsieur's cook and mademoiselle's maid, a veritable female factotum, enters, grumbling, into the dining room.

M. Dufour, his patience and his strength exhausted, has let fall his paper. His two plump, soft hands, hanging at the extremities of his swinging arms, look as if they too wanted to fall off.

"Well, sir," snaps Gertrude.

"Well, Gertrude," sighs the unfortunate man.

"Hadn't I better take back the soup?"

"Do you think so, Gertrude? Charlotte cannot fail to come in in a moment. It is even quite surprising that she is not here now. When did she go out, and where has she gone?"

"Mademoiselle left at 4 o'clock, as she always does, to take her piano lesson. The lesson lasts an hour. Half an hour to go, as much to come back. Mademoiselle should have been able to return, as is her custom, at 6 o'clock."

"And it is thirty-five minutes past 6."

"At this hour, you know, the omnibus is often full"

"Deuce take the omnibus!"

"Or mademoiselle, encouraged by the fine weather, may have wanted to take a little walk and come back on foot by the Rue de la Paix. And there are many dressmakers', many jewelers' shops, many things to see in the Rue de la Paix for young people."

"May the devil fly away with dresses, and jewels, and young people too, when they are as slow as this! I'd like to know what there can be to see at dinner time? A hungry stomach has no ears; nor should it have eyes."

"Without reckoning the lovers, the coxcombs who follow pretty passers-by, whispering in their ears a lot of silly—"

"Pshaw, I'm easy enough on that score. Lovers! You're joking, Gertrude. Charlotte is a good girl, thank heaven. She knows how to put a whippersnapper in his place if there be need." She has been brought up in the American fashion, Charlotte has, and I'm proud of it.

"There is not much reason for it. Brought up in the American fashion as much as you like, I am only a poor, ignorant woman, but as for me I do not understand how they can let a young lady run about the streets all alone."

"Run about! Pshaw! But you shall see, Gertrude, that Charlotte is a good girl, and always behaves herself."

"Possibly so, but it will come to no good end, I warn you, and it will be your fault, with your ideas of bringing up a girl in the American fashion."

M. Dufour was no longer listening; he had taken a sudden resolution.

"Gertrude, remove the soup, keep it warm, and bring me my boots. I am going to meet her."

The servant, still grumbling, has taken out the tureen and is returning with the boots, when all at once the street door bell rings out a merry peal.

"It's Charlotte at last!" exclaims the father, who was just preparing to remove his slippers.

"Yes, there she is," echoes Gertrude; and she hastens to open the door.

Mlle. Charlotte comes into the room like a miniature hurricane. A minionne face, smiling and merry; little blonde curls clustering on her forehead and neck; eighteen years, thirty-two teeth, a willowy figure with gracefully rounded curves, little feet just sufficiently arched, shapely hands neatly gloved—these give the general effect; but there are a thousand charming details, such as the dimples in her cheeks and chin, and the agreeable curves which promise much and which already tax her natty little jacket ribbons, flounces, artificial flowers, laces here and there; in two words, all of papa's mercer's shop—but nothing of the mercer.

"So, you're here at last?" the father remarks, ironically, as he draws his chair up to the table.

"Papa, I want to tell you—"

"Sit down; sit down to the table first. You can explain as we eat; I will understand you better. Gertrude, the soup."

"But, papa, you do not understand. I have just had an adventure, a true adventure."

"An adventure!" repeated M. Dufour, turning quickly about in his chair, while Gertrude cast at him, across the soup tureen, a glance at once of triumph and reproach, and which clearly said: Didn't I tell you so?

"Yes, papa, an adventure in an omnibus with a young man"

"In an omnibus! With a young man! Merciful heavens!!!” And unconsciously thrusting the ladle into his pocket, M. Dufour sprang to his feet like a jack-in-the-box; "an adventure! What do you mean by that?"

"Why, papa, an adventure with a perfectly proper young man, I can assure you," said the young girl, smiling

"Let me tell you, mademoiselle, for your future guidance, that perfectly proper young men and women do not have adventures, especially in omnibuses. Explain yourself."

"It is very simple, papa dear. And, truly, you need not make your eyes so fierce and your voice so big. You see, I had forgotten my portemonnaie—that can happen to any one, can't it?"

"Yes, yes; particularly to those who have none. Continue."

"I didn't notice it until the conductor held out his hand for my fare. What was I to do, what could I say? They might take me for a beggar, for a cheat, perhaps. I was perfectly crimson, and I felt I was going to turn deadly pale.

Fortunately, while the conductor still held out his hand, a nice looking young man by my side gave the conductor a piece of money and said, 'Two fares.' This gentleman, seeing my embarrassment, had understood and kindly paid for me."

"Well, mademoiselle, these are nice goings on! You accept six sous from a total stranger! Better to have explained to the conductor, to the driver, to the treasurer, to the whole company. Besides, you should not forget your portemonnaie when you get in an omnibus, or you should not get in an omnibus when you forget your portemonnaie. How are you going to repay the young man his six sous?—for I hope you do not intend to keep them as a memento."

"But, papa, I have his card. Here, you see. 'M. Adolphe Lindet, clerk at the ministry of war.'"

The father, not stopping to hear more, snatched the card from the girl's hand.

"What," he cried, "not content with insolently forcing on you a loan of thirty centimes, in disregard of all propriety, this gentleman presents you with his card in the bargain! Why, he is the worst of scoundrels, your perfectly proper young man!"

"But, papa, to be able to return his money to him I had to know his address."

M. Dufour could find no answer to his ingenious reasoning, and he tossed the card on the table with a thoroughly irritated air.

"I shall not dine this evening," he declared. "Gertrude, go find me a cab. I am going to return these six sous to this Adolphe immediately, and I shall give him a piece of my mind."

"Oh, papa, papa, you will not do that! It would be so ungrateful. Remember that this young man has rescued your daughter from a most unpleasant predicament"

"An unpleasant predicament! Leave me alone! He would put you in one, rather. Besides, you may keep still, mademoiselle: I need no instructions, particularly in the matter of remembering, from a young flyaway who forgets her portemonnaie." And M. Dufour puts on his boots and takes his cane, growing more angry each minute.

"The cabman is below, but he will take you to only one place."

"Very well, I can take another conveyance home." And out he goes, slamming the doors after him, leaving Charlotte to explain to her "dear old Gertrude" that she is much better acquainted with Adolphe than she dared avow to her father: that, for a month at least, he had taken the same omnibus that she took every evening; that, without showing it, she, Charlotte, had soon noticed that he had noticed her, etc.

"Heyday, this is a pretty kettle of fish," declared the shocked servant, shaking her head.

Adolphe is in his bachelor quarters and has just declared to himself that he will never wash the hand that his charmer touched so lightly as she took the card he offered her—or, not before to-morrow morning, at least.

Suddenly there is a knock on the door, it is thrown open and a stout old gentleman, with a very red face, his hat cocked over his ear and his cane sturdily grasped in his hand; bursts in upon the loving swain.

"Sir," begins the invader, in a declamatory tone, "your conduct is most frivolous; it is unworthy of a French gentleman. A chivalrous man does not thus abuse the innocence, the inexperience, the embarrassment of a well bred young girl. To profit by the absence of her father and her portemonnaie to brutally offer 30 centimes, and a visiting card; to an unprotected young person is, perhaps, enterprising, but it is a very bad action. However, here are your six sous, sir. My daughter and I wish to have nothing in common with you who—"

Before Adolphe, who was literally dumfounded, could say a word, a new actor appeared upon the scene. It was the cabman, furious reproaches upon his lips, and brandishing a formidable whip.

"So-ho, here's another fare who leaves no oats in my cab. I told you I could take you to only one place; you accepted; you even told me to hurry up, and once there you light out like a 3-year-old; you vanish without paying me a cent and tell me to wait. Well, that don't go. I'm a plain man, and a fare is a fare. Give me my money—nothing for beer, if you can't afford it—but I want my 30 sous, and that right now."

Adolphe understood not a word of all this. But the stout gentleman, who has fumbled his ten fingers in all his pockets, which he has successively turned inside out without any appreciable result, has turned quite pale, then all red, then crimson, and finally violet. Now he is turning green, like a rainbow in a high hat and a top coat.

Convinced at last that his laborious search is useless, M. Aristides Dufour, mopping his brow with his gloves, which he mistakes for his handkerchief, feebly replies, in a broken voice, to a last and more forcible demand from the cabman:

"I—I've—forgotten my pocket book."

"Oh, that don't go," roared the jehu; "they've tried that on me before; and you needn't try it again. You can tell that yarn to the commissioner of police. Well, you are a nice fare, anyhow."

And he caught hold of the arm of the unfortunate M. Dufour, who, inert, despairing, and on the verge of apoplexy, was allowing himself to be dragged out.

But Adolphe—a special providence for the Dufour family—has already taken the necessary sum from his purse, and dismisses the cabman.

"Will you allow me?" the young man politely asks of M. Dufour, who has only strength to murmur, "With pleasure, my dear sir. And twenty-five centimes for his drink money, not a bit more."

Miss Charlotte's father, who just now could not understand that one does not always have with one thirty centimes to pay an omnibus fare, began to admit that once in a while one may be very glad to fall upon some one who will complaisantly advance you the thirty-five sous to pay a pitiless cabman.

So, in spite of the diverse and unaccustomed emotions which he had just experienced, it was with an almost gracious smile that he said to Adolphe:

"M. Lindet, I believe—thirty centimes and one franc seventy-five make forty-one sous I owe you. If you will do me the honor to come and dine with me this evening we can arrange this little matter immediately. As an old business man, I do not like long standing debts; besides, quick payments make fast friends."

A quarter of an hour later Gertrude set one more place at the Dufour table. It is there still. In fact, the very next month the bans of Mlle. Charlotte and M. Adolphe were published at the mairie.

And papa Dufour now declares to whosoever will listen to him: "Never borrow, O fathers of families; it costs too much. Once in my life I was forty-one sous in debt, and to square the account I had to give my daughter and 80,000 francs as a marriage portion."

—

Translated for The Argonaut from the French of Henri Second by L. S. Vussault.