Ballads of a Bohemian | Page 3

carelessly explain?He'd biffed some bloated ~bourgeois~ on the border of the Seine. So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace,?And not a desperado and the terror of the police.
Now one day in a ~bistro~ that's behind the Place Vendo^me?I came on Julot the ~apache~, and Gigolette his ~mome~.?And as they looked so very grave, says I to them, says I,?"Come on and have a little glass, it's good to rinse the eye. You both look mighty serious; you've something on the heart." "Ah, yes," said Julot the ~apache~, "we've something to impart. When such things come to folks like us, it isn't very gay . . . It's Gigolette -- she tells me that a ~gosse~ is on the way." Then Gigolette, she looked at me with eyes like stones of gall: "If we were honest folks," said she, "I wouldn't mind at all. But then . . . you know the life we lead; well, anyway I mean (That is, providing it's a girl) to call her Angeline."?"Cheer up," said I; "it's all in life. There's gold within the dross. Come on, we'll drink another ~verre~ to Angeline the ~gosse~."
And so the weary winter passed, and then one April morn?The worthy Julot came at last to say the babe was born.?"I'd like to chuck it in the Seine," he sourly snarled, "and yet I guess I'll have to let it live, because of Gigolette."?I only laughed, for sure I saw his spite was all a bluff,?And he was prouder than a prince behind his manner gruff.?Yet every day he'd blast the brat with curses deep and grim, And swear to me that Gigolette no longer thought of ~him~.?And then one night he dropped the mask; his eyes were sick with dread, And when I offered him a smoke he groaned and shook his head: "I'm all upset; it's Angeline . . . she's covered with a rash . . . She'll maybe die, my little ~gosse~," cried Julot the ~apache~.
But Angeline, I joy to say, came through the test all right, Though Julot, so they tell me, watched beside her day and night. And when I saw him next, says he: "Come up and dine with me. We'll buy a beefsteak on the way, a bottle and some ~brie~." And so I had a merry night within his humble home,?And laughed with Angeline the ~gosse~ and Gigolette the ~mome~. And every time that Julot used a word the least obscene,?How Gigolette would frown at him and point to Angeline:?Oh, such a little innocent, with hair of silken floss,?I do not wonder they were proud of Angeline the ~gosse~.?And when her arms were round his neck, then Julot says to me: "I must work harder now, ~mon vieux~, since I've to work for three." He worked so very hard indeed, the police dropped in one day, And for a year behind the bars they put him safe away.
So dark and silent now, their home; they'd gone -- I wondered where, Till in a laundry near I saw a child with shining hair;?And o'er the tub a strapping wench, her arms in soapy foam; Lo! it was Angeline the ~gosse~, and Gigolette the ~mome~.?And so I kept an eye on them and saw that all went right,?Until at last came Julot home, half crazy with delight.?And when he'd kissed them both, says he: "I've had my fill this time. I'm on the honest now, I am; I'm all fed up with crime.?You mark my words, the page I turn is going to be clean,?I swear it on the head of her, my little Angeline."
And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled?Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old.?I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache . . .?I stopped, I stared. . . . By all the gods! 'twas Julot the ~apache~. "I'm in the garden way," he said, "and doing mighty well;?I've half an acre under glass, and heaps of truck to sell.?Come out and see. Oh come, my friend, on Sunday, wet or shine . . . Say! -- ~it's the First Communion of that little girl of mine.~"
II
~Chez Moi~, Montparnasse,
~The same evening~.
To-day is an anniversary. A year ago to-day I kicked over an office