Lippincotts Magazine, January 1875 | Page 3

say what you
like, with your left-handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, and you
may praise Ariadnes and widows to the end of the chapter. You are
sorry at this moment not to be at Épernay to see the destroyer of your
peace married: you had rather assist at the making of a wife than at the
making of a widow."
I was just sending Fortnoye to the gloomiest shades of Acheron when a
strong hand entered the carriage-door, helped me handsomely down the
steps, and then began warmly to shake my own. Fortnoye!--Fortnoye in
flesh and blood was before me. While my mouth was yet filled with
maledictions he began to pour out a storm of thanks with all his own
particular warmth, expressing the most effusive gratitude for the

trouble I had taken in forsaking my route to be his wife's bridesmaid.
That is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye. At the
same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown to me, crudely
illuminated by the raw colors of the railway-lights. They all had black
wedding-suits and enormous buttonhole nosegays of orange-flowers. I
picked them out, with a particular recognition for each: 'twas the civil
engineer of Noisy; the short gentleman named Somerard; James
Athanasius Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon him in the shape
of a Yankee wide-awake; the nameless mutes, or rather chorus, of the
champagne-crypt; in short, my nest of serpents in all its integrity. Still
entangled with my slumbers, I hesitated to respond to the friendly
hands that were everywhere thrust centripetally toward me.
I looked blackly at Hohenfels. He was chuckling.
At Heidelberg, making the acquaintance of M. Fortnoye
contemporaneously with my departure, he had become more enthralled
than he ever confessed to this radiant traveler--whom he called a
packman, but regarded as a Mercury--and his pretty scheme of
matrimony in motion. Even now, if I can believe my eyes, he goes up
to the "vintner" and "peddler" of his objurgations, and meekly whispers
into his ear with the air of a conspirator reporting a plot to his chief.
Having engaged to produce me at the wedding of Fortnoye, and finding
me unexpectedly recusant, he had adopted a little stratagem for
bringing me to the scene while thinking to escape from it.
"Thou too, Brutus!" I said, and gave it up. It only remained for me to
return all round, after five minutes of petrified stupidity, the
hand-grasps that had been offered from every quarter of the
compass-box.
Next morning, at an early hour, I was interrupted by a knock, just as
Charles had buttoned my gaiters and the young man from the
perruquier's (who had stolen in with that air of delicacy and of almost
literary refinement which belongs to his gentle profession) had lathered
me. A nick he gave my chin at the shock made my countenance all
argent and gules, and the visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned,
while the barber and Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a
shield," could only stare at the untimely apparition.
"Do you know him, Charles?" I asked, not recognizing my guest, and
putting over my painted face a mask of wet toweling.

"I know him intimately," replied my jester-in-ordinary: "I would thank
Monsieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do you remember, monsieur, a
sort of beggar, with a wagon and a stylish horse and a pretty wife, who
limped a bit with his right hand, or perhaps his left hand? Does
monsieur know what I mean? He used to come and see us at Passy; and
monsieur even had some traffic with him in a little matter of two
chickens."
"Father Joliet!" I cried.
"Present!" shouted the personage thus designated at my appeal to his
name. I turned round, toweled, and he grasped my hands. The unusual
hour, appropriate as I supposed only to some porter or other stipendiary
visitor of my hotel, caused to shine out with startling refulgence the
morning splendors in which Papa Joliet had arrayed himself. He wore a
courtly dress, appropriate to the most formal possible ceremony; his
black suit was glossy; his hat was glossy; his varnished pumps were
more than glossy--they were phosphorescent. Gloves only were
wanting to his honest hands.
[Illustration: PERRUQUIER.]
Soaped, napkined and generally extinguished, I could only stammer,
"You here in Brussels? What a droll meeting!"
"Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted him
all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter.
Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the
lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the breakfast is now cooking at
the best restaurant in the place."
"Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet!" I exclaimed. And, going back to
my apprehensions at