Lippincotts Magazine, January 1875 | Page 9

of the criminals!"
[Illustration: THE JESTER AT THE FEAST.]
In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the analogy
betwen een spinnekop and _eene meisie_, the perspiration streaming
over his face; and my ancient minnesinger's blood stirred within me at
the report of the pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais of
the people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming.
The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play each other
down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary processions that
quite overflowed the city. The house of "confections" yielded me no
broadcloth of a cut or dimension suitable to my figure. But my two
friends chose me a hat, a light pale-tot (my second purchase in that sort
on this eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a rosebud,
and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre, I concealed
the decay of my toilet. These changes were judged to be sufficient for
my accoutrement. They might have done very well, but on my way
back I paused at a lace-shop window to inspect some present for
Francine. A band, with many banners and figures in masquerade, swept
past, followed by a shouting crowd. My friends lost me in a moment,

and I lost my way. I turned into a street which I was sure led to the
hotel, gave it up for another, lost that in a blind alley, and finally
brought up in a steep, narrow cañon, where I was forced to ask a
direction. The passer-by who obliged me was a man bearing a bag of
charcoal. He answered with a ready intelligence that did honor to his
heart and his sense of Progressive Geography. But he left on my white
waistcoat, alas! a charcoal sketch, full of chiaroscuro and _coloris_,
representing his index-finger surrounded with a sort of cloud-effect.
My waistcoat had to be given over in favor of the elder garment
buttoned up in the all-concealing overcoat.
[Illustration: ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS.]
The ceremonies of the day, I soon found, were to consist in an early
and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; then the civil
wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the usual church-service,
from which the Protestant godmother of Francine begged to be excused;
the day to wind up with a general dinner at a place of resort outside the
city at four o'clock, the usual dining-hour in old Brabant.
The early breakfast gave a renewal of my friendship with good Frau
Kranich and a glimpse of the bride, with her sweet, patient, dewy face
shadowed like a honey-drop in the gauzy calyx of her artisanne cap; for
she was in the simplest of morning dresses--something gray, with a
clean white apron. The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was
decorated with exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old
fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were lecture
programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent philosophers.
As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, well used, which rested on
a magnificent old fan, the Kranich said, with just a reminiscence of her
former vivacity, "You find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I used to
be the grasshopper in the fable--now I am the ant."
"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your kindness
toward this charming girl."
"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and shabby you
look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor girl--so poor that she
has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you are as indigent as you were at
Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt very fatherly, and clasped her waist from
behind as I kissed her forehead.
The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous bald head

like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I have heard of you
before, monsieur. You are the man of the two chickens."
Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and clapping all
his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not but accept it
graciously. For this exceptional day, at least, I must bear my eternal
nickname. Was not the maid now present whose dower had been
hatched by those well-omened fowls? and was not the dower now
coming to use? Hohenfels paired off with the notary, and discussed
with that parchment person the music of Mozart, and, what would have
been absurd and incredible in any Anglo-Saxon country, the scribe
understood it!
Our party had to wait but ten minutes for the groom and his men.
Fortnoye, in a grand blue suit, with a wondrous dazzle of frilling on his
broad chest, looked a noble husband, but was preoccupied and silent.
His chorus supported him--Grandstone, Somerard, my engineer and the
others--in dignified black clothes, official boutonnières and ceremonial
cravats: