Part 40

But Barty could not afford this little outing, and he was very sad--with a sadness that not all the Pauillac and St.-Estèphe in M. Babet's cellars could have dispelled.

He made his friend a present of a beautiful pair of razors--English razors, which he no longer needed, since he no longer meant to shave--"en signe de mon deuil!" as he said. They had been the gift of Lord Archibald in happier days. Alas! he had forgotten to give his uncle Archie the traditional halfpenny, but he took good care to extract a sou from le Grand Bonzig!

So ended this little episode in Barty's life. He never saw Bonzig again, nor heard from him, and of him only once more. That sou was wasted.

It was at Blankenberghe, on the coast of Belgium, that he at last had news of him--a year later--at the café on the plage, and in such an odd and unexpected manner that I can't help telling how it happened.

One afternoon a corner of the big coffee-room was being arranged for private theatricals, in which Barty was to perform the part of a waiter. He had just borrowed the real waiter's jacket and apron, and was dusting the little tables for the amusement of Mlle. Solange, the dame de comptoir, and of the waiter, Prosper, who had on Barty's own shooting-jacket.

Suddenly an old gentleman came in and beckoned to Barty and ordered a demi-tasse and petit-verre. There were no other customers at that hour.

Mlle. Solange was horrified; but Barty insisted on waiting on the Old gentleman in person, and helped him to his coffee and pousse-café with all the humorous grace I can so well imagine, and handed him the Indépendance Belge, and went back to superintend the arrangements for the coming play.

Presently the old gentleman looked up from his paper and became interested, and soon he grew uneasy, and finally he rose and went up to Barty and bowed, and said (in French, of course):

"Monsieur, I have made a very stupid mistake. I am near-sighted, and that must be my apology. Besides, you have revenged yourself 'avec tant d'esprit,' that you will not bear me rancune! May I ask you to accept my card, with my sincere excuses?..."

And lo! it was Bonzig's famous Baron! Barty immediately inquired after his lost friend.

"Bonzig? Ah, monsieur--what a terrible tragedy! Poor Bonzig, the Best of men--he came to me at Étretat. I invited him there from Sheer friendship! He was drowned the very evening he arrived.

"He went and bathed after sunset--on his own responsibility and without mentioning it to any one. How it happened I don't know--nobody knows. He was a good swimmer, I believe, but very blind without his glasses. He undressed behind a rock on the shore, which is against the regulations. His body was not found till two days after, three leagues down the coast.

"He had an aged mother, who came to Étretat. It was harrowing! They were people who had seen better days," etc., etc., etc.

And so no more of le Grand Bonzig.

Nor did Barty ever again meet Lirieux, in whose existence a change had also been wrought by fortune; but whether for good or evil I can't say. He was taken to Italy and Greece by a wealthy relative. What happened to him there--whether he ever came back, or succeeded or failed--Barty never heard! He dropped out of Barty's life as completely as if he had been drowned like his old friend.

These episodes, like many others past and to come in this biography, had no particular influence on Barty Josselin's career, and no reference to them is to be found in anything he has ever written. My only reason for telling them is that I found them so interesting when he told me, and so characteristic of himself. He was "bon raconteur." I'm afraid I'm not, and that I've lugged these good people in by the hair of the head; but I'm doing my best. "La plus belle fille au monde ne peut donner que ce qu'elle a!"

I look to my editor to edit me--and to my illustrator to pull me through.

* * * * *

That autumn (1856) my father went to France for six weeks, on business. My sister Ida went with the Gibsons to Ramsgate, and I remained in London with my mother. I did my best to replace my father in Barge Yard, and when he came back he was so pleased with me (and I think with himself also) that he gave me twenty pounds, and said, "Go to Paris for a week, Bob, and see Barty, and give him this, with my love."

And "this" was another twenty-pound note. He had never given me such a sum in my life--not a quarter of it; and "this" was the first time he had ever tipped Barty.

Things were beginning at last to go well with him. He had arranged to sell the vintages of Bordeaux and Champagne, as well as those of Burgundy; and was dreaming of those of Germany and Portugal and Spain. Fortune was beginning to smile on Barge Yard, and ours was to become the largest wine business in the world--comme tout un chacun sait.

I started for Paris that very night, and knocked at Barty's bedroom door by six next morning; it was hardly daylight--a morning to be remembered; and what a breakfasting at Babet's, after a rather cold swim in the Passy school of natation, and a walk all round the outside of the school that was once ours!

Barty looked very well, but very thin, and his small sprouting beard and mustache had quite altered the character of his face. I shall distress my lady readers if I tell them the alteration was not an improvement; so I won't.

What a happy week that was to me I leave to the reader's imagination. We took a large double-bedded room at the Hôtel de Lille et d'Albion in case we might want to smoke and talk all night; we did, I think, and had our coffee brought up to us in the morning.

I will not attempt to describe the sensations of a young man going back to his beloved Paris "after five years." Tout ça, c'est de l'histoire ancienne. And Barty and Paris together--that is not for such a pen as mine.

I showed him a new photograph of Leah Gibson--a very large one and an excellent. He gazed at it a long time with his magnifying-glass and without, all his keen perceptions on the alert; and I watched his face narrowly.

"My eyes! She is a beautiful young woman, and no mistake!" he said, with a sigh. "You mustn't let her slip through your fingers, Bob!"

"How about that toss?" said I, and laughed.