shall go prick-a-pracking togeders!” for the full comprehension of those truly heroic words, it must be confessed that Schmucke’s ignorance of bric-a-brac was something of the densest. It required all the strength of his friendship to keep him from doing heedless damage in the sitting-room and study which did duty as a museum for Pons. Schmucke, wholly absorbed in music, a composer for love of his art, took about as much interest in his friend’s little trifles as a fish might take in a flower-show at the Luxembourg, supposing that it had received a ticket of admission. A certain awe which he certainly felt for the marvels was simply a reflection of the respect which Pons showed his treasures when he dusted them. To Pons’ exclamations of admiration, he was wont to reply with a “Yes, it is ver’ bretty,” as a mother answers baby-gestures with meaningless baby-talk. Seven times since the friends had lived together, Pons had exchanged a good clock for a better one, till at last he possessed a timepiece in Boule’s first and best manner, for Boule had two manners, as Raphael had three. In the first he combined ebony and copper; in the second – contrary to his convictions – he sacrificed to tortoise-shell inlaid work. In spite of Pons’ learned dissertations, Schmucke never could see the slightest difference between the magnificent clock in Boule’s first manner and its six predecessors; but, for Pons’ sake, Schmucke was even more careful among the “chimcracks” than Pons himself. So it should not be surprising that Schmucke’s sublime words comforted Pons in his despair; for “Ve shall go prick-a-pracking togeders,” meant, being interpreted, “I will put money into bric-a-brac, if you will only dine here.”
“Dinner is ready,” Mme. Cibot announced, with astonishing self-possession.
It is not difficult to imagine Pons’ surprise when he saw and relished the dinner due to Schmucke’s friendship. Sensations of this kind, that came so rarely in a lifetime, are never the outcome of the constant, close relationship by which friend daily says to friend, “You are a second self to me”; for this, too, becomes a matter of use and wont. It is only by contact with the barbarism of the world without that the happiness of that intimate life is revealed to us as a sudden glad surprise. It is the outer world which renews the bond between friend and friend, lover and lover, all their lives long, wherever two great souls are knit together by friendship or by love.
Pons brushed away two big tears, Schmucke himself wiped his eyes; and though nothing was said, the two were closer friends than before. Little friendly nods and glances exchanged across the table were like balm to Pons, soothing the pain caused by the sand dropped in his heart by the President’s wife. As for Schmucke, he rubbed his hands till they were sore; for a new idea had occurred to him, one of those great discoveries which cause a German no surprise, unless they sprout up suddenly in a Teuton brain frost-bound by the awe and reverence due to sovereign princes.
“Mine goot Bons?” began Schmucke.
“I can guess what you mean; you would like us both to dine together here, every day – ”
“Gif only I vas rich enof to lif like dis efery tay – ” began the good German in a melancholy voice. But here Mme. Cibot appeared upon the scene. Pons had given her an order for the theatre from time to time, and stood in consequence almost as high in her esteem and affection as her boarder Schmucke.
“Lord love you,” said she, “for three francs and wine extra I can give you both such a dinner every day that you will be ready to lick the plates as clean as if they were washed.”
“It is a fact,” Schmucke remarked, “dat die dinners dat Montame Zipod cooks for me are better as de messes dey eat at der royal dable!” In his eagerness, Schmucke, usually so full of respect for the powers that be, so far forgot himself as to imitate the irreverent newspapers which scoffed at the “fixed-price” dinners of Royalty.
“Really?” said Pons. “Very well, I will try to-morrow.”
And at that promise Schmucke sprang from one end of the table to the other, sweeping off tablecloth, bottles, and dishes as he went, and hugged Pons to his heart. So might gas rush to combine with gas.
“Vat happiness!” cried he.
Mme. Cibot was quite touched. “Monsieur is going to dine here every day!” she cried proudly.
That excellent woman departed downstairs again in ignorance of the event which had brought about this result, entered her room like Josepha in William Tell, set down the plates and dishes on the table with a bang, and called aloud to her husband:
“Cibot! run to the Cafe Turc for two small cups of coffee, and tell the man at the stove that it is for me.”
Then she sat down and rested her hands on her massive knees, and gazed out of the window at the opposite wall.
“I will go to-night and see what Ma’am Fontaine says,” she thought. (Madame Fontaine told fortunes on the cards for all the servants in the quarter of the Marais.) “Since these two gentlemen came here, we have put two thousand francs in the savings bank. Two thousand francs in eight years! What luck! Would it be better to make no profit out of M. Pons’ dinner and keep him here at home? Ma’am Fontaine’s hen will tell me that.”
Three years ago Mme. Cibot had begun to cherish a hope that her name might be mentioned in “her gentlemen’s” wills; she had redoubled her zeal since that covetous thought tardily sprouted up in the midst of that so honest moustache. Pons hitherto had dined abroad, eluding her desire to have both of “her gentlemen” entirely under her management; his “troubadour” collector’s life had scared away certain vague ideas which hovered in La Cibot’s brain; but now her shadowy projects assumed the formidable shape of a definite plan, dating from that memorable dinner. Fifteen minutes later she reappeared in the dining-room with two cups of excellent coffee, flanked by a couple of tiny glasses of kirschwasser.
“Long lif Montame Zipod!” cried Schmucke; “she haf guessed right!”
The diner-out bemoaned himself a little, while Schmucke met his lamentations with coaxing fondness, like a home pigeon welcoming back a wandering bird. Then the pair set out for the theatre.
Schmucke could not leave his friend in the condition to which he had been brought by the Camusots – mistresses and servants. He knew Pons so well; he feared lest some cruel, sad thought should seize on him at his conductor’s desk, and undo all the good done by his welcome home to the nest.
And Schmucke brought his friend back on his arm through the streets at midnight. A lover could not be more careful of his lady. He pointed out the edges of the curbstones, he was on the lookout whenever they stepped on or off the pavement, ready with a warning if there was a gutter to cross. Schmucke could have wished that the streets were paved with cotton-down; he would have had a blue sky overhead, and Pons should hear the music which all the angels in heaven were making for him. He had won the lost province in his friend’s heart!
For nearly three months Pons and Schmucke dined together every day. Pons was obliged to retrench at once; for dinner at forty-five francs a month and wine at thirty-five meant precisely eighty francs less to spend on bric-a-brac. And very soon, in spite of all that Schmucke could do, in spite of his little German jokes, Pons fell to regretting the delicate dishes, the liqueurs, the good coffee, the table talk, the insincere politeness, the guests, and the gossip, and the houses where he used to dine. On the wrong side of sixty a man cannot break himself of a habit of thirty-six years’ growth. Wine at a hundred and thirty francs per hogshead is scarcely a generous liquid in a gourmet’s glass; every time that Pons raised it to his lips he thought, with infinite regret, of the exquisite wines in his entertainers’ cellars.
In short, at the end of three months, the cruel pangs which had gone near to break Pons’ sensitive heart had died away; he forgot everything but the
