In Madeira Place | Page 5

his eyes, for hours together, if I would have stayed to listen.
He had many things to show in that parlor. He had gyroscopes: and he would wind them up and set half-a-dozen of those anti-natural tops spinning straight out in the air for my diversion. There were great sacks of uninflated balloons, and delicate sheet-rubber, from which Sorel made up balloons. There were other curious things in rubber,--a tobacco-pouch, for example, in perfect outward imitation of an iron kilogramme-weight, with a ring to lift it by, warranted to create "immense surprise" among those who should lift it for iron; tobacco-pouches, too, in fac-simile of lobsters and crabs and reptiles, colored to nature, which Sorel assured me would cause roars of laughter among my friends: there was no pleasanter way, he said, of entertaining an evening company than suddenly to display one of these creatures, and make the ladies scream and run about. He presented me, at different times, with a gyroscope, a kilogramme-weight and a lobster with a blue silk lining.
As time ran on, and, in the early winter, I began practice, Sorel brought me a little business. He had to sue two Graeco-Roman wrestlers for board and attach their box-office receipts. Some Frenchman had heard of a little legacy left him in the Calvados, and wanted me to look up the matter.
Fidèle, too, came to me every quarter-day, to make oath before me to his pension certificate, and stopped and made a short call. He had little to say about France. His great romance had been the war, although it seemed to have fused itself into a hazy, high-colored dream of danger, excitement, suffering, and generous devotion. Tears always rose in his eyes when he spoke of "la république?"
In those first days of practice, anything by the name of law business wore a halo, and I used to encourage Sorel's calls, partly for this reason and partly for practice in talking French with a common man. I hoped to go to France some day, and I wanted to be able then to talk not only with the grammatical, but with the dear people who say, "I guess likely," and "How be you?" in French.
Moreover, Sorel was rather amusing. He was something of a humorist. Once he came to tell me, excitedly, that Auguste was learning music: "Il touche au violon,--mais--'e play so bien!" And Sorel's eyes opened in wonder at the boy's quickness.
"Who teaches him?" I asked. "Some Frenchman who plays in the theatre?"
"Mais, no," Sorel replied, with a broad drollery in his eye; "un professeur d'occasion!" It was a ruined music-teacher, engaged now in selling balloons from Madeira Place, who was the "professeur d'occasion."
One day Sorel appeared with a great story to tell. Auguste, it seemed, had wearied of home, and was determined to go to sea. Nothing could deter him. Whereupon M. Sorel had hit upon a stratagem. He had hunted up, somewhere along the wharves, two French sailors with conversational powers, and had retained them to stay at his house for two or three days, as chance comers. It was inevitable that Auguste should ply them with eager questions,--and they knew their part.
As Sorel, entering into the situation now with all his dramatic nature, with his eyes wide open, repeated to me some of the tales of horror which they had palmed off upon innocent Auguste as spontaneous truth, I could see, myself, the rigging covered with ice an inch thick; sailors climbing up ("Ah! comme ils grimpent,--ils grimpent!") bare-handed, their hands freezing to the ropes at every touch, and leaving flesh behind, "comme if you put your tongue to a lam'post in the winter." I could see the seamen's backs cut up with lashes for the slightest offences; I tasted the foul, unwholesome food. I think that Sorel half believed it all himself,--his imagination was so powerful,--forgetting that he had paid in silver coin for every word of it. At any rate, the ruse had been successful. Auguste had been thoroughly scared and had consented to stay at home, and the most threatening cloud of Sorel's life had blown over.
Usually, however, Sorel and I talked politics; and to our common pleasure we generally agreed. Sorel knew very little about the details of our government, and he would listen to me with the utmost eagerness while I practised my French upon him, explaining to his wondering mind the relations of the States to each other and to the general government, and the system of State and Federal courts. He was very quick, and he took in the ingenious scheme with great facility. Then he would tell me about the workings of government in the French villages and departments; and as he read French papers, he had always something in the way of news or explanation of