Bohemian Days | Page 5

him--one Northern man had given him employment; his gratitude was defalcation.
To day he has sounded Hugenot; but that man of sentiment alluded to the business habits of his ancestry, and intimated that he did not lend.
"Ou-ah cause, Andy," he says, with a flourish, "is now negotiating a loan. When ou-ah beloved country is reduced to such straits, that she must borow from strangers, I cannot think of relieving private indigence."
Later in the day, however, Mr. Plade made the acquaintance of an ingenuous youth from Pennsylvania, and obtaining a hundred francs, for one day only, sent it straightway to Mr. Auburn Risque.
A second meeting was held at Lees' the third day noon, when the originator of the "system" sat icily grim behind a table whereon eleven hundred francs reposed; and the whole colony, crowding breathlessly around, was amazed to note how little the space taken up by so great a sum.
They opened a crevice that Lees might be gladdened with the sight of the gold; for to-day that invalid was unusually dispirited, and could not quit his bed.
"We are down very low, old Simp," said Pisgah, smilingly, "when either the possession or the loss of that amount can be an event in our lives."
"You will laugh that it was so, a week hence," answered Auburn Risque--"when you lunch at Peters' while awaiting my third check for a thousand dollars apiece."
"I don't believe in the system," growled Lees, opening a cold draft from his melancholy eyes: "I don't feel that I shall ever spend a sou of the winnings. No more will any of you. There will be no winnings to spend. Auburn Risque will lose. He always does."
"If you were standing by at the play I should," cried Risque, while the pock-marks in his face were like the thawings of ice. "You would croak like an old raven, and I should forget my reckoning."
"Come now, Lees," cried all the others; "you must not see bad omen for the Colony;" and they said, in undertone, that Lees had come to be quite a bore.
They were all doubtful, nevertheless. Their crisis could not be exaggerated. Their interest was almost devout. Three thousand miles from relief; two seas between, one of water and one of fire; at home, conscription, captivity, death: the calamity of Southerners abroad would merit all sympathy, if it had not been induced by waste, and unredeemed by either fortitude or regret.
The unhappy Freckle, whose luckless admiration of the rest had been his ruin, felt that a sonorous prayer, such as his old father used to make in the Methodist meeting-house, would be a good thing wherewith to freight Auburn Risque for his voyage. When men stake everything on a chance, it is natural to look up to somebody who governs chances; but Andy Plade, in his loud, bad way, proposed a huge toast, which they took with a cheer, and quite confused Hugenot, who had a sentiment apropos.
Then they escorted Auburn Risque to the Chemin de fer du Nord,[C] and packed him away in a third-class carriage, wringing his hand as if he were their only hope and friend in the world.
[Footnote C: Northern Railway Station.]

III.
DEATH IN EXPATRIATION.
It was a weary day for the Southern Colony. They strolled about town--to the Masque, the Jardin des Plantes, the Champ des Mars, the March�� aux Chevaux, and finally to Freckle's place, and essayed a lugubrious hour at whist.
"It is poor fun, Pisgah," said Mr. Simp, at last, "if we remember that afternoon at poker when you won eight thousand francs and I lost six thousand."
The conversation forever returned to Spa and Baden-Baden, and many wagers were made upon the amount of money which Risque would gain--first day--second day--first week, and so forth.
At last they resolved to send to Lees' chamber for the roulette-board, and pass the evening in experiment. They drew Jacks for the party who should fetch it, and Freckle, always unfortunate, was pronounced the man. He went cheerfully, thinking it quite an honor to serve the Colony in any capacity--for Freckle, representing a disaffected State, had fallen under suspicion of lukewarm loyalty, and was most anxious to clear up any such imputation.
His head was full of odd remembrances as he crossed the Place St. Sulpice: his plain old father at the old border home, close and hard-handed, who went afield with his own negroes, and made his sons take the plough-handles, and marched them all before him every Sunday to the plank church, and led the singing himself with an ancient tuning-fork, and took up the collection in a black velvet bag fastened to a pole.
He had foreseen the war, and sent his son abroad to avoid it. He had given Freckle sufficient money to travel for five years, and told him in the same sentence to guard his farthings