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The Underdog

F >> F. Hopkinson Smith >> The Underdog




"Susette! Susette!"

He, too, underwent a change. The long, ivory-black cassock, so
unmistakable in the atmospheric perspective, became an ordinary
frock-coat; the white band of a collar developed into the regulation
secular pattern, and the silk hat, although of last year's shape,
conformed less closely in its lines to one belonging exclusively to the
clergy. The face, though, as I could see in my hurried glance, and even
at that distance, was the smooth, clean-shaven face of a priest--the
face of a man of fifty, I should think, who had spent all his life in
the service of others.

Again came the voice, this time quite near.

"Susette! Susette!"

The child, without turning her head, waved her hand in reply, looked
earnestly into my face, and with a quick bending of one knee in
courtesy, and a "Merci, M'sieu; merci," ran with all her speed toward
the priest, who stretched wide his arms, half-lifting her from the
ground in the embrace. Then a smile broke over his face, so joyous, so
full of love and tenderness, so much the unconscious index of the heart
that prompted it, that I laid down my palette to watch them.

I have known many priests in my time, and I have never ceased to marvel
at the beauty of the tie which binds them to the little ones of their
flocks. I have never been in a land where priests and children were not
companions. These long-frocked guardians sit beside their playgrounds,
with noses in their breviaries, or they head processions of boys and
girls on the way to chapel, or they follow, two by two, behind a long
string of blue-checked aprons and severe felt hats, the uniform of the
motherless; or they teach the little vagrants by the hour--often it is
the only schooling that these children get.

But I never remember one of them carrying such a waif about in his arms,
nor one irradiated by such a flash of heavenly joy when some child, in a
mad frolic, saw fit to scrape her muddy shoes down the front of his
clean, black cassock.

The beatific smile itself was not altogether new to me. Anyone else can
see it who wanders into the Gallery of the Prado. It irradiates the face
of an old saint by Ribera--a study for one of his large canvases, and is
hung above the line. I used to stand before it for hours, studying the
technique. The high lights on the face are cracked in places, and the
shadows are blackened by time, but the expression is that of one who
looks straight up into heaven. And there is another--a Correggio, in
the Hermitage, a St. Simon or St. Timothy, or some other old
fellow--whose eyes run tears of joy, and whose upturned face reflects
the light of the sun. Yet there was something in the face of the priest
before me that neither of the others had--a peculiar human quality,
which shone out of his eyes, as he stood bareheaded in the sunshine, the
little girl in his arms. If the child had been his daughter--his very
own and all he had, and if he had caught her safe from some danger that
threatened her life, it could not have expressed more clearly the
joyousness of gratitude or the bliss inspired by the sense of possessing
something so priceless that every other emotion was absorbed.

It was all over in a moment. He did not continue to beam irradiating
beatitudes, as the old Ribera and the older Correggio have done for
hundreds of years. He simply touched his hat to me, tucked the child's
hand into his own, and led her off to her mother.

I kept at my work. For me the incident, delightful as it was, was
closed. All I remembered, as I squeezed the contents of another tube on
to my palette, was the smile on the face of the priest.

The weather now began to take part in the general agitation. The lazy
haze, roused by the joyous sun, had gathered its skirts together and had
slipped over the hills. The sun in its turn had been effaced by a big
cloud with scalloped edges which had overspread the distant line of the
river, blotting out the flashes of silver laughter, and so frightening
the little waves that they scurried off to the banks, some even trying
to climb up the stone coping out of the way of the rising wind. A cool
gust of air, out on a lark, now swept down the path, and, with lance in
rest, toppled over my white umbrella. Big drops of rain fell about me,
spitting the dust like spent balls. Growls of thunder were heard
overhead. One of those rollicking, two-faced thunder-squalls, with the
sun on one side and the blackness of the night on the other, was
approaching.

The priest had seen it, for he had the child pickaback and was running
across the sward. The woman had seen it, too, for she was already
collecting her baskets, preparing to follow, and I was not far behind.
Before she had reached the edge of the woods I had overtaken her, my
traps under my arm, my white umbrella over my head.

"The Châlet Cycle is the nearest," she volunteered, grasping the
situation, and pointing to a path opening to the right as she spoke.

"Is that where he has taken the child?" I asked, hurriedly.

"No, Monsieur--Susette has gone home. It is only a little way."

I plunged on through the wet grass, my eyes on the opening through the
trees, the rain pouring from my umbrella. Before I had reached the end
of the path the rain ceased and the sun broke through, flooding the wet
leaves with dazzling light.

These two, the clouds and the sun, were evidently bent on mischief,
frightening little waves and painters and bright-eyed children and good
priests who loved them!



A PROCESSION OF UMBRELLAS


II

Do you happen to know the Châlet Cycle?

If you are a staid old painter who takes life as he finds it, and who
loves to watch the procession from the sidewalk without any desire to
carry one of the banners or to blow one of the horns--one of your
three-meals-a-day, no heel-taps, and go-to-bed-at-ten-o'clock kind of a
man, then make a note of the Cycle. The melons are excellent; the
omelets are wonders, and the salads something to be remembered. But, if
you are two-and-twenty, with the world in a sling and both ends of the
sling in your hand, and if this is your first real outing since your
college days, it would be just as well for you to pass it by and take
your coffee and rolls at the little restaurant over the bridge, or the
one farther down the street.

Believe me, a most seductive place is this Châlet Cycle, with its tables
set out under the trees!

A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on
_tête-à-tête_ tables, and close-drawn curtains about the kiosks. A
place, by day, where you lunch under giant red and white umbrellas, with
seats for two, and these half-hidden by Japanese screens, so high that
even the waiters cannot look over. A place with a great music-stand
smothered in palms and shady walks and cosey seats, out of sight of
anybody, and with deaf, dumb, and blind waiters. A place with a big
open gateway where everybody can enter and--ah! there is where the
danger lies--a little by-path all hedged about with lilac bushes, where
anybody can escape to the woods by the river--an ever-present refuge in
time of trouble and in constant use--more's the pity--for it is the
_unexpected_ that always happens at the Châlet Cycle.

The prettiest girls in Paris, in bewitching bicycle costumes, linger
about the music-stand, losing themselves in the arbors and shrubberies.
The kiosks are almost all occupied: charming little Chinese pagodas
these--eight-sided, with lattice screens on all sides--screens so
tightly woven that no curious idler can see in, and yet so loosely put
together that each hidden inmate can see out. Even the trees overhead
have a hand in the villany, spreading their leaves thickly, so that the
sun itself has a hard time to find out what is going on beneath their
branches. All this you become aware of as you enter the big, wide gate.

Of course, being quite alone, with only my battered old umbrella for
company, I did not want a whole kiosk to myself, or even half of a giant
umbrella. Any quiet corner would do for me, I told the Maître d'Hôtel,
who relieved me of my sketch-trap--anywhere out of the rain when it
should again break loose, which it was evidently about to do, judging
from the appearance of the clouds--anywhere, in fact, where I could eat
a filet smothered in mushrooms, and drink a pint of _vin ordinaire_
in peace.

"No, I expected no one." This in answer to a peculiar lifting of the
eyebrows and slight wave of his hand as he drew out a chair in an
unoccupied kiosk commanding a view of the grounds. Then, in rather a
positive tone, I added:

"Send me a waiter to take my order--orders for _one_, remember." I
wanted to put a stop to his insinuations at once. Nothing is so annoying
when one's hair is growing gray as being misunderstood--especially
by a waiter.

Affairs overhead now took a serious turn. The clouds evidently
disapproving of the hilarious goings-on of the sun--poking its head out
just as the cloud was raining its prettiest--had, in retaliation,
stopped up all the holes the sun could peer through, and had started in
to rain harder than ever. The waiters caught the angry frown on the
cloud's face, and took it at its spoken word--it had begun to thunder
again--and began piling up the chairs to protect their seats, covering
up the serving-tables, and getting every perishable article under
shelter. The huge mushroom-umbrellas were collapsed and rushed into the
kiosks--some of them into the one where I sat, it being the largest;
small tables were turned upside down, and tilted against the
tree-trunks, and the storm-curtains of all the little kiosks let down
and buttoned tight to the frames. Waiters ran hither and thither, with
napkins and aprons over their heads, carrying fresh courses for the
several tables or escaping with their empty dishes.

In the midst of this mêlée a cab dashed up to the next kiosk to mine,
the wheels cutting into the soft gravel; the curtains were quickly drawn
wide by a half-drowned waiter, and a young man with jet-black hair and
an Oriental type of face slipped in between them.

Another carriage now dashed up, following the grooves of the first
wheels--not a cab this time, but a perfectly appointed coupé, with two
men in livery on the box, and the front windows banked with white
chrysanthemums. I could not see her face from where I sat--she was too
quick for that--but I saw the point of a tiny shoe as it rested for an
instant on the carriage-step and a whirl of lace about a silk stocking.
I caught also the movement of four hands--two outstretched from the
curtains of the kiosk and two from the door of the coupé.

Of course, if I had been a very inquisitive and very censorious old
painter, with a tendency to poke my nose into and criticise other
people's business, I would at once have put two and two together and
asked myself innumerable questions. Why, for instance, the charming
couple did not arrive at the same moment, and in the same cab? or why
they came all the way out to Suresne in the rain, when there were so
many cosey little tables at Laurent's or at the Voisin, on the Rue
Cambon, or in the Café Anglais on the Boulevard. Whether, too, either
one were married, and if so which one, and if so again, what the other
fellow and the other woman would do if he or she found it all out; and
whether, after all, it was worth the candle when it did all come out,
which it was bound to do some day sooner or later. Or I could have
indulged in the customary homilies, and decried the tendencies of the
times, and said to myself how the world was going to the dogs because of
such goings-on; quite forgetting the days when I, too, had the world in
a sling, and was whirling it around my head with all the impetuosity and
abandon of youth.

[Illustration: I saw the point of a tiny shoe.]

But I did none of these things--that is, nothing Paul Pryish or
presuming. I merely beckoned to the Maître d'Hôtel, as he stood poised
on the edge of the couple's kiosk, with the order for their breakfast in
his hands, and, when he had reached my half-way station on his way
across the garden to the kitchen, stopped him with a question. Not with
my lips--that is quite unnecessary with an old-time Maître d'Hôtel--but
with my two eyebrows, one thumb, and a part of one shoulder.

"The nephew of the Sultan, Monsieur--" he answered, instantly.

"And the lady?"

"Ah, that is Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud of the Variété. She comes
quite often. For Monsieur, it is his first time this season."

He evidently took me for an old _habitué_. There are some
compensations, after all, in the life of a staid old painter.

With these solid facts in my possession I breathed a little easier.
Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud, from the little I had seen of her, was
quite capable of managing her own affairs without my own or anybody
else's advice, even if I had been disposed to give it. She no doubt
loved the lambent-eyed gentleman to distraction; the kiosk was their
only refuge, and the whole affair was being so discreetly managed that
neither the lambent-eyed gentleman nor his houri would be obliged to
escape by means of the lilac-bordered path in the rear on this or any
other morning.

And if they should, what did it matter to me? The little row in the
cloud overhead would soon end in further torrents of tears, as all such
rows do; the sun would have its way after all and dry every one of them
up; the hungry part of me would have its filet and pint of St. Julien,
and the painter part of me would go back to the little path by the river
and finish its sketch.

Again I tried to signal the Maître d'Hôtel as he dashed past on his way
to the kiosk. This time he was under one of the huge umbrellas which an
"omnibus" was holding over him, Rajah-fashion. He had a plump melon,
half-smothered in ice, in his hands, to protect it from the downpour,
the rain making gargoyles of the points of the ribs of the umbrella.
Evidently the breakfast was too important and the expected fee too large
to intrust it to an underling. He must serve it himself.

Up to this Moment no portion of my order had materialized. No cover for
one, nor filet, nor _vin ordinaire_, nor waiter had appeared. The
painter was growing impatient. The man inside was becoming hungry.

I waited until he emerged with an empty dish, watched him grasp the
giant umbrella, teeter on the edge of the kiosk for a moment, and plunge
through the gravel, now rivers of water, toward my kiosk, the "omnibus"
following as best he could.

"A thousand pardons, Monsieur--" he cried from beneath his shelter, as
he read my face. "It will not be long now. It is coming--here, you can
see for yourself--" and he pointed across the garden, and tramped on,
the water spattering his ankles.

I looked and saw a solemn procession of huge umbrellas, the ones used
over the _tête-à-tête_ tables beneath the trees, slowly wending its way
toward where I sat, with all the measured movement and dignity of a file
of Eastern potentates out for an airing.

Under each umbrella were two waiters, one carrying the umbrella and the
other a portion of my breakfast. The potentate under the first umbrella,
who carried the wine, proved to be a waiter-in-chief; the others
bearing the filet, plates, dishes, and glasses were ordinary
"omnibuses," pressed into service as palanquin-bearers by reason of
the storm.

The waiter-in-chief, with the bottle, dodged from under his bungalow,
leaving it outside and still open, like a stranded circus-tent, stepped
into my kiosk, mopped the rain from his coat-sleeves and hands with a
napkin, and, bowing solemnly, pointed to the label on the bottle. This
meeting my approval, he relieved the rear-guard of the dishes, arranged
the table, drew the cork of the St. Julien, filled my glass, dismissed
the assistants and took his place behind my chair.

The closeness of the quarters, the protection it afforded from the
raging elements, the perils my companion had gone through to serve me,
made possible a common level on which we could stand. We discussed the
storm, the prospect of its clearing, the number of unfortunates in the
adjacent Bois who were soaked to the skin, especially the poor little
bicycle-girls in their cotton bloomers, now collapsed and bedraggled. We
talked of the great six-day cross-country bicycle-race, and how the
winner, tired out, had wabbled over the Bridge that same morning, with
the whole pack behind him, having won by less than five minutes. We
talked of the people who came and went, and who they were, and how often
they dined, and what they spent, and ate and drank, and of the rich
American who had given the waiter a gold Louis for a silver franc, and
who was too proud to take it back when his attention was called to the
mistake (which my companion could not but admit was quite foolish of
him); and, finally, of the dark-skinned Oriental with the lambent eyes,
and the adorable Ernestine with the pointed shoes and open-work silk
stockings and fluffy skirts, who occupied the kiosk within ten feet of
where I sat and he stood.

During the conversation I was busy with my knife and fork, my eyes at
intervals taking in the scene before me; the comings and goings of the
huge umbrellas--one, two, or three, as the serving of the dishes
demanded, the rain streaming from their sides; now the fish, now the
salad, now a second bottle of wine in a cooler, and now the last course
of all on an empty plate, which my companion said was the bill, and
which he characterized as the most important part of the procession,
except the _pour boire_. Each time the procession came to a full stop
outside the kiosk until the sentinel waiter relieved them of their
burdens. My sympathies constantly went out to this man. There was no
room for him inside, and certainly no wish for his company, and so he
must, perforce, balance himself under his umbrella, first on one leg and
then on the other, in his effort to escape the spatter which now reached
his knees, quite as would a wet chicken seeking shelter under a
cart-body.

I say my companion and I "talked" of these several sights and incidents
as I ate my luncheon. And yet, really, up to this time I had not once
looked into his face, quite a necessary thing in conducting a
conversation of any duration. But then one rarely does in talking to a
waiter when he is serving you. My remarks had generally been addressed
to the dish in front of me, or to the door opposite, through which I
looked, and his rejoinders to the back of my shirt-collar. If he had sat
opposite, or had moved into the perspective, I might once in a while
have caught a glimpse, over my glass or spoon, of his smileless,
mask-like face, a thing impossible, of course, with him constantly
behind my chair.

When, however, in the course of his monotone, he mentioned the name of
Mademoiselle Ernestine Béraud and that of the distinguished kinsman of
His Serene Highness, the Grand Pan-Jam of the Orient, I turned my head
in his direction.

"You know the Mademoiselle, then?"

My waiter shrugged his shoulders, his face still impenetrable.

"Monsieur, I know everybody in Paris. Why not? Twenty-three years a
waiter. Twenty years at the Café de la Paix in Paris, and three years
here. Do you wonder?"

There are in my experience but four kinds of waiters the world over.
First, the thin, nervous waiter, with a set smile, who is always
brushing away imaginary crumbs, adjusting the glasses--an inch this way,
an inch that way, and then back again to their first position, talking
all the time, whether spoken to or not, and losing interest the moment
you pay him his fee. Then the stolid, half-asleep waiter, fat and
perpetually moist, who considers his duties over when he has placed your
order on the cloth and moved the wine within reach of your hand. Next
the apprentice waiter, promoted from assistant cook or scullion-boy, who
carries on a conversation in signs behind your back with the waiter
opposite him, smothering his laughter at intervals in the same napkin
with which he wipes your plate, and who, when he changes a course,
slants the dishes up his sleeve, keeping the top one in place with his
chin, replacing the plates again with a wavy motion, as if they were so
many quoits, each one circling into its place--a trick of which he is
immensely proud.

And last--and this is by no means a large class--the grave, dignified,
self-possessed, well-mannered waiter; smooth-shaven, spotlessly clean,
noiseless, smug and attentive. He generally walks with a slight limp, an
infirmity due to his sedentary habits and his long acquaintance with his
several employers' decanters. He is never under fifty, is round of form,
short in the legs, broad of shoulder, and wears his gray hair cut close.
He has had a long and varied experience; he has been buttons, valet,
second man, first man, lord high butler, and then down the scale again
to plain waiter. This has not been his fault but his misfortune--the
settling of an estate, it may be, or the death of a master. He has, with
unerring judgment, summed you up in his mind before you have taken your
seat, and has gauged your intelligence and breeding with the first dish
you ordered. Intimate knowledge of the world and of men and of
women--especially the last--has developed in him a distrust of all
things human. He alone has seen the pressure of the jewelled hands as
they lay on the cloth or under it, the lawful partner opposite. He alone
has caught the last whispered word as the opera-cloak fell about her
shoulders, and knows just where they dined the next day, and who paid
for it and why. Being looked upon as part of the appointments of the
place, like the chandeliers or the mirrors or the electric bell that
answers when spoken to but never talks back, he has, unconsciously to
those he serves, become the custodian of their closest secrets. These he
keeps to himself. Were he to open his mouth he could not only break up a
score or more of highly respectable families, but might possibly upset
a ministry.

My waiter belonged to this last group.

I saw it in every deferential gesture of his body, and every modulated
tone of his voice. Whether his moral nature had become warped and
cracked and twisted out of all shape by constant daily and nightly
contact--especially the last--with the sort of life he had led, or
whether some of the old-time refinement of his better days still clung
to him, was a question I could not decide from the exhibits before
me--certainly not from the calm eyes which never wavered, nor the set
mouth which never for a moment relaxed, the only important features in
the face so far as character-reading is concerned.

I determined to draw him out; not that he interested me in any way, but
simply because such studies are instructive. Then, again, his account of
his experiences might be still more instructive. When should I have a
better opportunity? Here was a man steeped in the life of Paris up to
his very eyelids, one thoroughly conversant with the peccadilloes of
innumerable _viveurs_--peccadilloes interesting even to staid old
painters, simply as object-lessons, especially those committed by the
other gay Lothario: the fellow, for instance, who did not know she was
dangerous until his letter of credit collapsed; or the peccadilloes of
the beautiful moth who believed the candle lighting her path to be an
incandescent bulb of joy, until her scorched wings hung about her bare
shoulders: That kind of peccadillo.

So I pushed back my chair, opened my cigar-case, and proceeded to adjust
the end of my mental probe. There was really nothing better to do, even
if I had no such surgical operation in view. It was still raining, and
neither I nor the waiter could leave our Chinese-junk of an island until
the downpour ceased or we were rescued by a lifeboat or an umbrella.

"And this nephew of the Sultan," I began again between puffs, addressing
my remark to the match in my companion's hand, which was now burning
itself out at the extreme end of my cigar. "Is he a new admirer?"

"Quite new--only ten days or so, I think."

"And the one before--the old one--what does he think?" I asked this
question with one of those cold, hollow, heartless laughs, such as
croupiers are supposed to indulge in when they toss a five-franc piece
back to a poor devil who has just lost his last hundred Napoleons at
baccarat--I have never seen this done and have never heard the laugh,
but that is the way the storybooks put it--particularly the
blood-curdling part of the laugh.

"You mean Pierre Channet, the painter, Monsieur?"

I had, of course, never heard of Pierre Channet, the painter, in my
life, but I nodded as knowingly as if I had been on the most intimate
relations with him for years. Then, again, this was my only way of
getting down to his personal level, the only way I could draw him out
and get at his real character. By taking his side of the question, he
would unbosom himself the more freely, and, perhaps, incidentally, some
of the peccadilloes--some of the most wicked.

"He will _not think_, Monsieur. They pulled him out of the river last
month."

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