Bohemian Days | Page 4

ever--the
threadbare curtains, the rheumatic chairs, the soiled floor, sashes and
wallpaper.
Mr. Hugenot fumbled his shirt-bosom nervously, and his diamond pin,
glaring like a lamp upon the worn garbs and faces of his compatriots,
showed them still wanner and meaner by contrast.
"Put the blues under your feet!" cried Auburn Risque, in his hard,
practical way; "my system will resurrect the dead. You shall have

clothes upon your backs, shoes upon your feet, specie in your pockets,
blood in your veins. Let us sell, borrow and pawn; we can raise a
thousand francs together. I will return in a fortnight with fifty
thousand!"

II.
RAISING THE WIND.
The million five hundred thousand folks in Paris, who went about their
pleasures that October night, knew little of the sorrows of the Southern
Colony.
Pisgah dropped in at the Chateau des Fleurs to beg a paltry loan from
some ancient favorite. The time had been, when, after a nightly
debauch, he had placed two hundred francs in her morning's coffee-cup.
It was mournful now to mark his premature gray hairs, as, resting his
soiled, faded coat-sleeve upon her manteau de velour, he saw the scorn
of his poverty in the bright eyes which had smiled upon him, and made
his request so humbly and so feverishly.
"Give me back, Feefine," he faltered, "only that fifty francs I once tied
in a gold band about your spaniel's neck. I am poor, my dear--that will
not move you, I know, but I am going to Germany to play at the banks;
if I win, I swear to pay you back ten francs for one!"
There was never a lorette who did not love to gamble. She stopped a
passing gentleman and borrowed the money; the other saw it
transferred to Pisgah, with an expression of contempt, and, turning to a
friend, called him aloud a withering name.
Poor Pisgah! he would have drawn his bowie-knife once, and defied
even the emperor to stand between the man and himself after such an
appellation. He would have esteemed it a favor now to be what he was
named, and only lifted his creased beaver gratefully, and hobbled
nervously away, and stopping near by at a café drank a great glass of
absinthe, with almost a prayerful heart.

At Mr. Simp's hotel in the Rue Monsieur Le Prince much business was
transacted after dark. Monsieurs Freckle and Plade were engaged in
smuggling away certain relics of furniture and wearing apparel.
Mr. Simp already owed his landlord fifteen months' rent, for which the
only security was his diminishing effects.
If the mole-eyed concierge should suspect foul play with these, Simp
would be turned out of doors immediately and the property confiscated.
Singly and in packages the collateral made its exit. A half-dozen regal
chemises made to order at fifty francs apiece; a musical clock picked
up at Genoa for twelve louis; a patent boot-jack and an ebony billiard
cue; a Paduan violin; two statuettes of more fidelity than modesty, to be
sold pound for pound at the current value of bronze; divers
pipes--articles of which Mr. Simp had earned the title of connoisseur,
by investing several hundred dollars annually--a gutta-percha
self-adjusting dog-muzzle, the dog attached to which had been seized
by H. M. Napoleon III. in lieu of taxes, etc., etc.
Everything passed out successfully except one pair of pantaloons which
protruded from Freckle's vest, and that unfortunate person at once fell
under suspicion of theft. All went in the manner stated to Mr. Lees'
chamber, he being the only colonist who did not hazard the loss of his
room, chiefly because nobody else would rent it, and in part because
his landlady, having swindled him for six or eight years, had
compunctions as to ejecting him.
Thence in the morning, true to his aristocratic instincts, Mr. Simp
departed in a voiture for the central bureau of the Mont de Piete,[B] in
the Rue Blanc Manteau. His face had become familiar there of late. He
carried his articles up from the curb, while the cocher grinned and
winked behind, and taking his turn in the throng of widows, orphans,
ouvriers, and profligates and unfortunates of all loose conditions, Simp
was a subject of much unenviable remark. He came away with quite an
armful of large yellow certificates, and the articles were registered to
Monsieur Simp, a French subject; for with such passports went all his
compatriots.

[Footnote B: The government pawnbroking shop.]
Andy Plade spent twenty-four hours, meanwhile, at the Grand Hotel,
enacting the time-honored part of all things to all men.
He differed from the other colonists, in that they were weak--he was
bad. He spoke several languages intelligibly, and knew much of many
things--art, finances, geography--just those matters on which newly
arrived Americans desire information. His address