XVI. AMONG THE MARKET PORTERS
“Boulevard Rochechouart,” said Berthe, the young asylum nurse, to the conductor as she sprang into the tram just as it was starting.
It was a September afternoon, one of the last fine days of the now fast-dying summer, and the girl had just got her fortnightly leave for forty-eight hours. She had gone off duty at noon, and now had until noon on the next day but one to resume her own personality and shake off the anxieties that beset all those who are charged with the constant care of the insane, the most distressing kind of patients that exists. As a general rule Berthe spent her fortnightly holidays with her old grand-parents in their cottage outside Paris, but on this occasion she had elected to remain in the city, influenced thereto by the long conversation she had had with the patient confided to her particular care, No. 25, Mme. Rambert. Since that first talk with her, on the day of Professor Swelding’s visit to the asylum, she had had others, and Berthe had now elaborated a plan to enable the supposed lunatic to escape, and had decided to spend her short holiday in bringing the plan to a point.
At the boulevard Rochechouart Berthe got out of the tram, looked around to get her bearings in the somewhat unfamiliar neighbourhood, and then turned into the rue Clignancourt and stood on the left-hand side of the street, looking at the shops. The third one was a wine shop, only the first of many in the street.
Berthe pushed the door of this establishment a little way open and looked at the rather rowdy company gathered round the zinc counter, all with flushed faces and all talking loudly. She did not venture inside, but in a clear voice asked, “Is M. Geoffroy here?” No definite answer was forthcoming, but the men turned round, hearing her enquiry, and seeing her pretty figure began to nudge one another and jest and laugh coarsely. “Come in, missy” said one of them, but already Berthe had quickly closed the door and lightly gone on her way.
A few yards further on there was another bar, and into this, also, Berthe peeped and once more asked, “Is M. Geoffroy here?” adding by way of further explanation, “Hogshead Geoffroy, I mean.” This time a roar of laughter followed, and the girl fled, flushed with indignation.
Yet she did not desist from her strange search, and at last, at the sixth shop, her question was answered by a deep bass voice from the far end of a smoke-clouded den. “Hogshead Geoffroy? Here!” and heaving a sigh of relief Berthe went inside the shop.
When you want to see M. “Hogshead” Geoffroy, your procedure is simplicity itself. As he has no known address, all you have to do is to start at the bottom of the rue Clignancourt on the left-hand side, look into every wineshop, and ask, in tones loud enough to be heard above the clatter of conversation, whether Hogshead Geoffroy is there, and it will be mighty bad luck if, at one or other of the bars, you do not hear the answer, “Hogshead Geoffroy? Here,” followed immediately by that gentleman’s order to the patronne: “Half a pint, please: the gentleman will pay!” It is a safe order; the patronne knows from past experience that she can serve the half-pint without anxiety: Hogshead Geoffroy rapidly drains it, and then holds out a huge and hairy hand to the visitor and enquires, “Well, what is it?”
If, as often happens, the Hogshead finds himself confronted by a stranger, he feels no surprise; he knows his own popularity, and is a modest soul, so he calls his visitor by his Christian name at once, taps him amicably on the shoulder, and calls him “old boy,” and invites him to stand a drink. The Hogshead is an artist in his line; he hires himself out to public halls to announce in his powerful voice, reinforced by a trumpet, the various items on the programme or the results of performances achieved. He also harangues the crowd on behalf of showmen, or hurls threats at too excited demonstrators at public demonstrations. Between whiles he rolls hogsheads down into cellars, or bottles wine, and even drinks it when he is among friends who have money to pay withal.
At sight of Berthe, Hogshead Geoffroy so far departed from custom as not to give an order to the patronne at the bar; instead, he rose and went towards the girl and unceremoniously embraced her.
“Ah-ha, little sister, there you are! Why, I was just that moment thinking of you!” He drew her to the back of the shop, towards a bunch of sturdy, square-shouldered fellows drinking there, to whom he introduced her. “Now then, mates, try to behave yourselves; I’m bringing a charming young lady to see you, my sister Berthe, little Bob—Bobinette, as we called her when we lived with the old folks.” The girl blushed, a little uneasy at finding herself in such a mixed company, but Hogshead Geoffroy put every one at ease; he put his great hand under Berthe’s chin and tilted her head back. “Don’t you think she is pretty, this little sister of mine? She’s the very spit of her brother!” There was a general roar of laughter. The contrast between the two figures was so great that it seemed impossible there could be any relationship between them: the graceful, slender, tiny Parisienne looking tinier still beside the huge colossus of a man six feet high, with the chest of a bull and the shoulders of an athlete. “We don’t seem to be built on quite the same lines,” M. Geoffroy admitted, “but all the same there is a family likeness!”
The men made room for the girl, and after she had yielded to the general insistence and accepted a glass of white wine, Geoffroy bent forward and spoke in a lower tone.
“Well, what do you want with me?”
“I want to talk to you about something which will interest you, I’m sure,” Berthe answered.
“Anything to be got out of it?” was the giant’s next enquiry.
Berthe smiled.
“I expect so, or I wouldn’t have troubled you.”
“Whenever there’s any money to be picked up the Hogshead’s always on,” he replied: “especially just now when things aren’t any too bright, though I may tell you I think there’s going to be an alteration in that respect.”
“Have you got a situation?” Berthe asked in some surprise.
Hogshead Geoffroy laid a finger on his lip.
“It’s still a secret,” he said, “but there’s no harm in talking it over, for everybody here knows all about it,” and at interminable length, and with many a pause for libations, he explained that he was a candidate for an appointment as Market Porter. He had been cramming for a fortnight past, in order to emerge triumphantly from the examination to which candidates were always subjected, and that very morning he had sat in the Hotel de Ville wrestling with nothing less than a problem in arithmetic. In proof, he produced from his pocket a crumpled, greasy and wine-stained sheet of paper scrawled all over with childish writing and figures, and showed it to his sister, immensely proud of the effect he was producing on her. “A problem,” he repeated. “See here: two taps fill a tank at the rate of twenty litres a minute, and a third tap empties it at the rate of fifteen hundred litres an hour. How long will it take for the tank to get full?”
A friend of Geoffroy’s broke in: it was Mealy Benoît, his most formidable competitor for the appointment.
“And how long will it take for you to get full?” he asked with a great laugh.
Hogshead Geoffroy banged his fist on the table.
“This is a serious conversation,” he said, and turned again to his sister, who wanted to know if he had succeeded in finding the answer to the problem. “Maybe,” he replied. “I worked by rule of thumb, for, as you know, arithmetic and all those devil’s funniments aren’t in my line. To sit for an hour, writing at a table in the great hall of the Hotel de Ville—not much! It made me sweat more than carrying four hundredweight!”
But the company was preparing to make a move. Time was getting on, and at six o’clock the second part of the examination, the physical test, was to be held in the Fish Market. Mealy Benoît had paid his score already, and Hogshead Geoffrey’s deferent escort of friends was getting restless. Berthe won fresh favour in her brother’s eyes by paying for their refreshments with a ten franc piece and leaving the change to be placed to his credit, and then with him she left the wineshop.
The annual competition for a
n appointment as Market Porter is held at the end of September. It is a great event. There are generally many candidates, but only two or three, and sometimes less, of the best are picked. The posts are few and good, for the number of porters is limited. The examination is in two parts: one purely intellectual, consisting of some simple problem and a little dictation, the other physical, in which the candidates have to carry a sack of meal weighing three hundredweight a distance of two hundred yards in the shortest time.
At six o’clock punctually the market women were all in their places along the pavement by their respective stalls. The hall was decorated with flags; the salesmen and regular shopmen were provided with chairs, and their assistants were behind them, with the sweepers and criers; at the back stood three or four rows of the general public, all eager to witness the impressive display.
The two-hundred-yard course was carefully cleared, every obstacle having been scrupulously swept off the asphalte, especially pieces of orange-peel, lettuce leaves and bits of rotten vegetable matter, which might have caused a competitor to slip when trying to break the record for carrying the sack. A high of ficial of the Hotel de Ville and three of the senior Market Porters formed the jury, and there were also two officials of the Cyclists’ Union, expert in the use of stop watches, armed with tested chronometers and deputed to take the exact time of each performance.
The crowd of onlookers was as odd, and eclectic, and keen, as can possibly be imagined. Berthe, who knew that false modesty is quite out of place in popular gatherings, mingled freely in the general conversation. Among other picturesque types she had noticed one particularly extraordinary individual who, although he was in the last row of all, overtopped the rest by quite half of his body, being perched on an antiquated tricycle, which provoked the hilarity of the mob.
“What ho, Bouzille!” somebody called out, for the man was a well-known and popular figure, and everybody knew his name. “Is that Methuselah’s tricycle that you have pinched?” and to some of the sallies the fellow replied with a smile that was almost lost in his matted beard, and to others with a jest uttered in the purest dialect of Auvergne.
Someone spoke softly in Berthe’s ear and she turned and saw a sturdy fellow of about twenty-five, wearing a blue blouse, a red handkerchief round his neck, and a drover’s cap; he was a well-built, powerful man, and in spite of his humble dress, had an intelligent face and an almost distinguished manner. Berthe responded amiably, and a few commonplace remarks were exchanged between the two.
“In case you care to know, my name’s Julot,” said the man.
And Berthe replied frankly, but without otherwise compromising herself.
“And I am Bob, or Bobinette, whichever you like. I am Hogshead Geoffroy’s sister,” she added with a little touch of pride.
A murmur ran round the crowd. Mealy Benoît was going through his trial. The great fellow came along with rapid, rhythmical step, with supple limbs and chest hunched forward. Surely balanced on his broad shoulders and the nape of his neck was an enormous sack of meal, accurately weighed to scale three hundredweight. Without the least hesitation or slackening of pace, he covered the two hundred yards, reaching the goal perfectly fresh and fit; he stood for a moment or two in front of the judges, displaying the mighty muscles of his naked chest, over which the perspiration was running, and evincing genuine delight in not freeing himself from his heavy burden at the earliest possible moment. The applause was enthusiastic and immediate, but silence quickly fell again and all eyes turned towards the starting-post. It was Hogshead Geoffroy’s turn.
The giant was really a splendid sight. Instead of walking as his rival had done, he began to step like a gymnast, and the crowd yelled their delight. It seemed that he must beat his rival’s time easily, but all at once the great sack on his shoulders was seen to shake, and Geoffroy almost stopped, uttering a heavy groan before he got going again. The crowd looked on in surprise: where he had just set his feet there was a wet mark upon the asphalte: Geoffroy had slipped on a piece of orange-peel. But he managed to restore the equilibrium of the sack, and, taught caution by the risk he had just run, he finished the course with measured steps.
Two hours later the result of the competition was announced. Hogshead Geoffroy and Mealy Benoit were bracketed equal, having taken exactly the same time to cover the course; upon the result of the written examination would depend the final issue, and the matter was all the more important because this year there was but one vacancy for a Market Porter.
Berthe, or Bobinette, was vehemently discussing with her neighbours the mishap that had befallen Geoffroy during his trial. A man dressed in a shabby black overcoat buttoned up to the chin, and wearing a kind of jockey cap on his greasy hair, was watching her intently, seeming to agree with all she said while really interested in something else. Berthe, who was very intent upon the matter in hand, did not notice this individual’s manner; it was Julot, her faithful squire for the last two hours, who got her away.
“Come,” he said, taking her by the sleeve, “you know your brother is waiting for you,” and as she yielded to his insistence he whispered in her ear, “That chap’s a dirty-looking rascal: I don’t think much of him!”
“He certainly is uncommonly ugly,” the girl admitted, and then like the trained nurse that she was, she added, “and did you notice his complexion? The man must be ill: he is absolutely green!”
XVII. AT THE SAINT-ANTHONY’S PIG
“Pay for a drink, and I’ll listen to you,” said Hogshead Geoffroy to his sister.
After numerous visits to the many bars and drinking saloons that surround the markets, they had finally gone for a late supper into the Saint-Anthony’s Pig, the most popular tavern in the neighbourhood, Geoffroy having reconciled himself to waiting for the result of the examination, which would not be announced until the following day.
A new and original attraction had been stationed outside the Saint-Anthony’s Pig for the last few days. After the formal enquiries succeeding his discovery of the drowned body in the river, Bouzille had come to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. He had met with but a week’s delay in his itinerary, having been locked up for that time at Orleans for some trifling misdemeanour.
On entering the capital, Bouzille’s extraordinary equipage had caused quite a sensation, and as the worthy fellow, with utter disregard of the heavy traffic in the city, had careered about in it through the most crowded streets, he had very soon been run in and taken to the nearest lock-up. His train had been confiscated for forty-eight hours, but as there was nothing really to be objected against the tramp, he had merely been requested to make himself scarce, and not to do it again.
Bouzille did not quite know what to make of it all. But while he was towing his two carriages behind his tricycle towards the Champ-de-Mars, from which point he would at last be able to contemplate the Eiffel Tower, he had fallen in with the editor of the Auto, to whom, in exchange for a bottle of wine at the next café, he had ingenuously confided his story. A sensational article about the globe-trotting tramp appeared in the next number of that famous sporting journal, and Bouzille woke to find himself famous. The next thing that happened was that François Bonbonne, the proprietor of the Saint-Anthony’s Pig, shrewdly foreseeing that this original character with his remarkable equipage would furnish a singular attraction, engaged him to station himself outside the establishment from eleven to three every night, in return for his board and lodging and a salary of five francs a day.
It need not be said that Bouzille had closed with the offer. But getting tired of cooling his heels on the doorstep, he had gradually taken to leaving his train on the pavement and himself going down into the basement hall, where he generously returned his five francs every night to the proprietor, in exchange for potations to that amount.
In the basement of the Saint-Anthony’s Pig the atmosphere was steadily getting cloudier, and the noise louder. The time was about a quarter to two. The “swells,” and the young men about town who went to have a
bowl of onion soup at the popular café because that was the latest correct thing to do, had withdrawn. The few pale and shabby dancers had given their show, and in another ten minutes, when the wealthy customers had departed, the supper room would resume its natural appearance and everybody would be at home. François Bonbonne had just escorted the last toffs up the narrow corkscrew staircase that led from the basement to the ground-floor, and now he stood, his stout person entirely filling the only exit, unctuously suggesting that perhaps somebody would like to give an order for a hot wine salad.
Berthe was sitting in a corner beside her brother, whom the warmth of the room and his numerous potations had rendered drowsy, and thinking it an opportune moment to tell him of her scheme, before he became talkative or quarrelsome, she began to explain.
“There’s nothing much to do, but I want a strong man like you.”
“Any barrels to roll anywhere?” he enquired in a thick voice.
Berthe shook her head, her glance meanwhile resting mechanically on a small young man with a budding beard and a pale face, who had just taken a seat opposite her and was timidly ordering a portion of sauerkraut.
“I want some bars removed from a window; they are iron bars set in stone, but the stone is worn and the bars are very rusty, and anybody with a little strength could wrench them out.”
“And that’s all?” Geoffroy enquired suspiciously.
“Yes, that’s all.”
“Then I shall be very glad to help you: I suppose it will be worth something, won’t it?” He broke off short, noticing that a man sitting close by seemed to be listening attentively to the conversation. Berthe followed his eyes, and then turned with a smile to her brother.
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