Evening Star Newspaper, June 25, 1922, Page 60

THE FOUNDLING HERE was‘a time when Aris- tide Pujol, in scle charge of zn automoblle, ‘went gayly scuttering over the roads of France. I use the word advisedly. It vou had heard the awful thing as it passed by you would agree that it 18 the only word adequate to express its hideous mode of progression. It was a two-seated. scratched, battered, ramshackle tin concern of hoary an- tiquity. belonging to the childhood ot the race. Not only horses, but other automo- biles shied at it. It was a vehicle of| deriston. Yet Aristide regarded it| with glowing pride and drove It witi such daredevilry that the parts must ~ave held together only through sheer breathless wonder. Had It not been for the car, he told me, he would not have undertaken the undignified employmgnt in which le was then engaged—the mounte- bank selling of a corn cure in the| public places of small towns and vil-| lages. It was not u fitting pursuit; for a late managing director of a public company and an ex-professor | of French in an English academy for ! .. He wauted to rise, ma | tol, end in the social scale.| But when hunger drives—que voules- | vous? Besides. there was the auto-| mobile. It s true he had bound him-| selt by his contract to exhibit a| bhoard at the back bearing a flaming picture of the success of the cure and | a legend, “Guerissez vos cors. and | 1o display @ banner with the same | .levice, when weather permitted. But, still, there was the automobile. R T had been lying for many motor ages in the shhed of the proprie- tors of the cure, the Maison Hieropath of Marseille, neglected, forlorn, eaten by rust and worm, when suddenly an 1dea occurred to their business imagi- nation. Why should they not use the automobjje to advertise and sell the | cure about the country? The apostle o charge would pay for his own| petrol, take a large percentage on sales, and the usual traveler's com- mission on orders that he might place. But where to find an apostle? Brave and desperate men came In| high hopes, looked at the car, and, | shaking their heads sorrowfully, went | away. At last. at the loosest of ends, came Aristide. The splendor of the :dea—a poet, in his way, was Aristide, | and the idea was the thing that al- ways held him captive—the splendor of the idea of dashing up to hotels in his own automobile dazed him. He beheld himself doing his hundred kilometers an hour and trailing| crowds of glory whithersoever he | went. To & child a moth-eaten rock- ingvhorse fs a flery Arab of the plains: to Aristide Pujol this cheat of | the scrap-heap was a sixty-horse- power thunderer and devourer of <pace. How they managed to patch up her interior so that she moved unpushed | is a mystery which Aristide, not di-| vining. could not reveal; and when and where he himself learned to drive a motor car is also vague. 1 Dbelieve the knowledge came by na- ture. He was a fellow of many welird accomplishments. He could conjure: | could model birds and beasts out of | breadcrumb; could play the drum—! finite barrenness’ of the plain, the ridges on either side, the long. straight, endless road cleaving through this abornination of desola- tion. . To walk through it would be a task as deprsssing as mortal could exe- cute. But to the speed-drunken mo- torist it is a realization of dim and tremulous visions of Paradise. What reed to look to the right or the left when you are swallowing up free mile after mile of diszying road? Aristide looked neither to right nor left, and knew this was heaven at last. ¥ ok % ¥ | UDDENLY, however, he became aware of & small black spot far | shead in the very middle of the un-! encumbered track. As he drew near it looked like a great stone. He swerved as he passed it, and, looking. saw that it was a bundle wrapped In | a striped blanket. It seemed so odd | that it should be lying there that. his curiosity belng aroused, he pulled | up-and walked back a few yards to| examine it. The ncarer he approach- | ed the less did it resemble an ordi- nary bundle. He bent down, and lo! between the folds of the blanket peeped the face of a sleeping child. He stared al the baby, then up and down the road, then swept the horizon. Not a soul was visible. How did the baby get there? The heavens, according’ to history, have rained | many things in their time: bread,| quatls, blood, frogs and what not; but there is no mention of their ever | having rained babies. It could not,, therefore, have come from the clouds. | It could not even have fallen from the | tail of a cart, for then it would have been killed, or at least have broken its bones, and generally been ren- dered a different baby from the sound, chubby mite sleeping as peacefully as if the Golgotha of Provence hed been its cradle from birth. It could not have come thers ac- cidentally. Deliberate hands had laid it down, in the center of the road, too. Why not by the side, | where It would have been out of the | track of thundering automobiles?! When the murderous intent became | obvious, Aristide shivered and felt| sick. He breathed fierce and honest anathema on the heads of the fiends | who had abandoned the babe to its doom. Then he stooped and picked up the bundle tenderly in his arms. The wee face puckered for a mo- ment and the wee limbs shot out vigorously, then the dark eyes opened and stared Aristide solemnly and wonderingly in the face. So must the infant Remus have first regarded his she-wolf mother. Having ascer- | | | | | """*d' :"“"}'v that it was not 8o- | mpe gtriped blanket was full of holes | maining uncovered, looked at the ing to be devoured. It began to ery |, 4 ¢melled abominably. lustily, showing two little white specks of teeth in the lower gum. | “Mon pauvre petit, you are hun- gry.” said Aristide, carrying it to the i car racked by the clattering engine. | rovealing itself to be a sturdy boy | “I wonder when you last tasted food? | If I only had a little biscuit and wine | of which, I believe, is good for babies. Wait, wait, mon cheri, until we get to Salon. There I promise you proper | nourishment.” | * % X ¥ | danced the baby up and down in | so well that he had a kettledrum hanging around his neck during most of his military service. He oould make omelettes and rabbit hutches; couid imitate any animal that ever| emitted sound—a gift that endeared | him to children; could do almost any- thing you please—save stay in one place and acquire material posses- | sions. | The fact that he had never done a| thing before was to him no proof of | Lis inability to do it. In his superb self-confidence he would have under- taken to conduct the orchestra at Covent Garden or navigate a liner| his arms and made half-remem- | bered and insane nofses, which event- ually had the effect of reducing it t its original calm stare of wonder- ment. i “Voila," sald Aristide, delighted. ' "Now we can advance.” | He deposited it on the vacant seat. | clambered up behind the wheel and started. But not at the breakneck speed of twenty miles an hour. He went slowly and carefully, his heart in' his mouth at every lurch of the | afflicted automobile, fearful lest the | child should be precipitated from its slippery resting place. But, alas! he | fed and tended at & hotel, he would make his deposition to~the poice, who would take it to the Enfants Trouves, the department of state, which provides fathers and mothers and happy homes for foundlings at a cost to the country of 25 francs a month per foundling. It is true that the parents 8o provided think more of the 25 francs than they do of the foundling. But that was the affair of the state, Pujol. In the meanwhile he examined the in a not of Aristide brat curiously. It was dressed il # wwflp [T [l gt il = ARISTIDE STOPPED BEFOR coarse calico jumper, very unclean. ERE PHE baby crowed and laughed and stretched like a young animal. about nine months old. Aristide tled had ! X {'nim up in the lower part of a suit| to give you: but, alas! there's noth- | o¢ pa5amas, cutting little holes in | ing but petrol and corn cure, neither | g gides for his tiny arme, and, fur- | ther, with a view to cheating his hunger, provided him with a shoe- horn. The defenseless little head he managed to squeeze into the split mouth of a woolen sock. Aristide regarded him in triumph. The boy chuckled gleefully. Then Aristide folded him warmly in his traveling ug and entered into an animated conversation. Now it happened that at the most interesting point of the talk (he baby clutched Aristide's finger in his little brown hand. The tiny fingers clung strongly. A queer thrill ran through the im- pressionable man. The tiny fingers seemed to close round his heart. * * It was a bonny, good-na- tured. gurgling scrap—and the pure eyes looked truthfully into his soul. “Poor little wretch!" said Aristide, across the Atlantic. Knowing this, 1| giq not proceed far. At the end of | who. peasant's son that he was, knew cease to bother my head about 80|, yyjometer the engine stopped dead. | what he was talking about. small a matter as the way in which he learned to drive a motor car. * k¥ BEHOLD him, then, one raw March | morning scuttering along the road that leads from Arles to Salon, in Provence. He wore a goatskin coat | and a goatsisin cap drawn down well | over his ears. His handsome bearded | face, with its lustrous, laughing eyes, | peeped out curiously human amid the circumambient shagginess. | There was not a turn visible in the | long, stralght road that lost itself in the far distant mist; not a speck on it signifyiag cart or creature. Aristide Pujol gave himself up to the delirium of speed and urged the half- Lursting engine to twenty miles an | hour. In spite of the racing-track surface, the crasy car bumped and Jolted: the sides of the rickety bon- net clashed like cymbals; every valve wheezed and squealed; every nut seemed to have got loose and terrifically clattered. Rattling nof grunting noises, screeching noises escaped from every part. It creaked and clanked like an over-insured tramp sSteamer in a typhoon. It lurched as if affiicted with locomotor ataxia; and noisome vapors belched forth from the open exhaust pipe as if the car were a tophet on wheels. But all was music in the ears of | -Aristide. The car was going (it did not always go), the road scudded under him, and the morning air dashed stingingly into his face. For the moment he desired nothing more of life. This road between Arles and Salon runs through one of the most deso. late parts of France—a long, endless plain, about five miles broad, lying between two long low ranges of hills. it is strewn like a monstrous Gol- gotha, not with skulls, but with huge #mooth pebbles, as massed together as the shingle on a beach. Rank grass shoots up in what interstices it fnds, but beyond this nothing grows. Nothing can grow. \On sunless day under a lowering sky it is a land accursed. Mile after mile for nearly twenty miles stretches this stony and barren e. No human habitation cheers the sight, for from such a soil no human hand could wrest a suste- nance. Only the rare traffic going from Arles to Salon and from Salon i0 Arles passes along the road. The cheery passing show of the live high- way is wanting. There are no chil- drenm, no dogs, no ducks and hens, no men and women lounging to their work, no red-trousered soldiers on bicycles, no blue-bloused, weather- beaten farmers jogging along in their little carts. As far as the eye czn reach nothing suggestive of man %eots the view. Nothing but the in- He leaped out to see what had happened, and, after a few perplexed and exhausting moments, remem- ARISTIDE WASHED AND POWDE] - bered. He hall not even petrol to offer to the baby, having omitted— most feather-headed of mortals—to fill up his tank before starting, and forgotten to bring a spare tin. There was nothing to pe done save walt patiently until another motorist should pass by from whom he might purchase the necessary amount of essence to carry him on to Salon. Meanwhile the baby would go break- fastlesa. Aristide clambered back to his seat, took the child on his knees and commiserated it profoundly. Sit- ting "there on his apparently home. made vehicle, in the midst of the unearthly silence of the sullen and barren “vilderness, attired in his shaggy goatskin cap and coat, he Tesembled an up-to-date Robinson Crusoe dandling an infant Friday. ‘The disposnl of the child at Salon. would be stmple. After having it “Poor little wretch! If you go into the Enfants Trouves you'll have a devil of a time of it.” ADMINISTERING SUGGESTIONS. The tiny clasp tightened. As if the babe understood, the chuckle died from his face. “You'll be cuffed and kicked and half starved, while' your adopted mother . pockets her twenty-five francs & month, and you"ll belong to and wonder why the deuce you're alive, and wish you were dead: and, if you remember today, curse me for not having had the decency to run over you.” The clasp relaxed, puckers sippeared at the corners of the dribbling mouth, and a myriad tiny horozontal lines of care marked the soc-capped brow. “Poor little devil!” said Aristide. “My heart bleeds for you, especially now thkat you're dressed in my sock and pajama, and are sucking the only shoe-horn I ever posseased.” * & * % A WELeOMB sound-chnsed Aristide road. He looked ahead, and there, in & cloud of dust, a thing like a torpedo came swooping down. He held up both his arms, the signal of a motorist in dis- tress. The torpedo approached with slackened speed, and stopped. It was an evil-looking, drab, high-powdered racer, and two bears with goggles sat in the midst thereof. The bear at the wheel raised his cup and asked cour- teously: “What can we do for you, mon- sleur?” At that moment the baby broke into heart-rending cries. Aristide | | ook off his goat-skin cap and, re-| HOTEL. | bear, then at the baby, then at the | bear again. ! “Monsieur,” he sald, “I suppose it's | useless to ask you whether you have any milk and a feeding bottle?" “Mais dites donc!” shouted the bear, | furiously, his hand on the brake. “Stop an automoblle like this on such a pretext— 2" Aristide held up a protesting hand, and fixed the bear with the irresis- tible roguery of his eyes. “Pardon, monsieur, I am also out of petrol. Forgive a father's feel- ings. The baby wants milk and 1} want petrol, and I don’t know whos: | | need is the more imperative. But it you could sell me enough petrol to| | carry me to Salon T should be moet | grateful.” . The request for petrol is not to ce | refused. To supply it, if possible, is | the written law of motordom. The| second bear slid from his seat and | extracted a tin from the recesses of | the torpedo, and stood by while Aris- | tide filled his tank, a process that| necessitated laying the baby on the ground. He smiled. “You seem amused,” said Aristide. “Parbleu!” said the motorist. “You | | have at the back of your auto a placard | telling people to cure thelr corns, and in front you carry a baby | “That,” replicd Aristide, *is easily un- | derstood. T am the agent of the Maison | Aristide otherwise than rash? !an old, laugh, clapped his hands and danced before the delighted babe. “Mon petit Jean,” said he, with humor- ous tenderness, “for 1 suppose your name is Jean:; I will rend myself in pleces before I let the administration board you out among the wolves. You shall not go to the Enfants Trouves. I myself will adopt you, mon petit Jean." * ¥ ¥ % AE Aristide had no fixed abode what- ever, the address on his visiting card, “213 bls, Rue Saint-Honore, Paris,” being that of an old green-grocer woman of his acquaintance, with whom he lodged when he visited the metropolis, there was a certain amount of rashness But when was Had prudence been his guiding principle through life he would not have been sell- ing corn cure for the Maison Hieropath, and consequently would not have dis- covered the child at all. In great delight at this satisfactory settlement of little Jean's destiny, he started the ramshackle engine and drove triumphantly on his way. Jean, fatigued by the emotions of the last half aour. slumbered peacefully. “The little angel ! in the undertaking. said Aristide. The sun was shining when they | arrived at Salon, the gayest, the most coquettish, the most laughing little town in Provence. It is a place all trees and open spaces and fountalns and cafes and sauntering people. The on'y thing grim about it is the soli- tary machicclated tower in the main strret, the last vestige of ancient ramparts; and even that, close cudd'ed on each side by prosperous liouses with shops beneath, looks like oll, wrinkled grandmother smiling amid her daintler grandchil- dren. Every one seemed to be in the open air. Those who kept shops stcod at the doorways. The prospect augured well for the Malison Hiero- path Artistide stopped before a hotel, disentangled Jean, to the mild inter- est of the passers-by, and, carrying him in, delivered him into the arms | of the landlady. “Madame,” he said, “this is my son. I am taking him from his mother, who is dead, to an aunt who is an invalid. So he is alone on my hands. He is very hungry, and I beseech you to feed him at once.” The motherly woman received the babe instinctively and cast aside the traveling rug in which he was en- veloped. Then she nearly dropped him. “Mon Dieu! Qu'est-ce que c'est que oar’ She stared in stupefaction at the stoocking cap and at the long flannel pajama legs that depended from the body of the infant, around whose neck the waist was tightly drawn. Never since the world began had babe masqueraded in such attire. Aristide smiled his most engaging smile. “My son’s luggage has unfortunate- ly been lost. His portmanteau. pauvre petit, was so small. ‘A poor widower, did what I oould. I am RED JEAN HIMSELF, THE LANDLORD LOUNGING BY, PIPE IN MOUTH, Hieropath of Marseilles, and the baby, whom I, its father, am carrying from a dead mother to an invalid aunt, I am using en an advertisement. As he luck- ily has no corns, I can exhibit ais feet as a proof of the efficacy of the corn cure.” The bear laughed and joined his com- panion, and the torpedo thundered away. Aristide replaced the baby, and with & complicited arrangement of string fastened it securely to the seat. The baby, having ceased crying, clutched his beard as he bent over, and “goo'd” pleasantly. The tug was at his heart- strings. How could he give so fascinat- ing, so valiant a mite over to the En- fants Trouves? Besides, it belonged to him. Had he not in jest claimed pa- [lected he commenced his harangue. terpity? It had given him & new im- | When their number Increased he per- portance. He could say “mon fils,” just | formed prodigies of chiropody on the but a mere man, madame.” “Evidently,” said the woman, with some asperity. * X k ¥ ARXBTIDE took a louis from his purse. “If you will purchase him some necessary articles of cos- tume. while I fulfill my duties toward the Maison Hieropath of Marseilles, which I represent, you will be doing me a kindness” The landlady took the louls in a bewildered fashion. Allowing for the baby’s portmanteau to have gone astray, what, she asked, ‘had become of the oclothes he must have been wearing? Aristide en- tered upon a picturesque and reails- tio explanation. The lamllady was stout, was stupid, could not grasp the fantastic. “Mon Dieu!” she maid. “To think that thers are Christians who dress their children like this!" She sighed exhaustively, and, holding the gro- tesque infant olose to her breast, disappeared indignantly to adminis- ter the very greatly needed mother- -:::l';lid- breathed & sigh of relief, and after a well earned dejeuner went forth with the car into the Place des Arbres and prepared to ply his trade. First he unfurled the Hieropath banner, which floated proudly in the breeze. Then on & folding table he displayed his col- lection of ointment boxes (together with pills and a toothache kilier which he sold on his own account( and a waxed model of a human foot on which were grafted putty corns in every stage of callosity. As soon as half a dosen idlers col- as he could say (with equal veracity) |putty ocorms, and demonstrated the “mon sutomoblle™ A generous thrill { proper apploation of the eure. 3 to leap into the thiddle -of the |ran through aim He burst into a loud | talked incessantly all the while. One of the Adventures of Aristide Pujol He has told me, in the grand man- ner, that this phase of his career was distastefv] to him. But I scarcely believa it. If ever & rian loved to 4alk, it. was Aristide Pujon; and what profession, save that of an advocat offers more occasion for wheedling loquacity than that of a public ven- der of quack medicaments? As a matter_of fact, he reveled in it ‘When he offered a free box of the cure to the first lady who confessed the need thereof, and a blushing wench came forward, the rascal rev- eled in the opportunity for badinage which set the good-humored crowd in a roar. He loved to exert his half-mesmeric power. He had not the soul of =& "'mountebank, for Aristide’s soul had its high and generous dwelling-plac but he had the Puckish swiftness and mischlef of which the successful mountebank is made. And he was a success because he treated it as an |art, thinking nothing during its prac- itice of the material gain, laughing whole-heartedly, like his great prede- cessor Tabarin of imperishable mem- ory, and satisfying to the full his instinct for the dramatic. On the other hand, ever since he | started life in the brass-buttoned shell-jacket of a chasseur in a Mar- seilles cafe, and dreamed dreams of the fairy-tale lives of the clients who came in accompanied by beautifully dressed ladies, he had social ambi- tions—and the social status of the mountebank s, to say the least of it, ambiguous. Ah me! What would man be without the unattainable? I * % ¥ % ARISTIDE pocketed his takings, struck his flag, dismantled his table, and visited the shops of Salon in the interest of the Maison Hiero- path. The day's work over, he re- turned to inquire for his supposi- titious offspring. The landlady, all |smiles, presented him with a trans- | mogrified Jean, cleansed and pow- |dered, arrayed In the smug panoply of bourgeois babyhood. Shoes with |a pompon adorned his feet, and a rakish cap decorated with white! satin ribbons crowned his head. He also wore an embroidered frock and a pelisse trimmed with rabbit fur. | Jean grinned apd dribbled self- | consclously, and showed his two lit-| |tle teeth to the proudest father in the world. The landlady invited the happy parent into her little dark parlor beyond the office, and there exhibited a parcel containing gar- ments and implements whoss use {was a mystery to Aristide. She also | demanded the greater part of another louis. Aristide began to learn that fatherhood is expensive. But what did it matter? After all, here was a babe equip- ped to face the exigencies of a cen- sorious world; in looks and apparel a credit to any father. As the after- noon was fine, and as it seemed & pity to waste satin and rabbit fur on the murky interior of the hotal, Aris- tide borrowed a perambulator from the landlaly, and, joyous as a school- boy, wheeled the splendid infant through the sunny avenues of Salon. That evening a bed was made up for the ¢hild in Aristide's room, which until its master retired for the night was haunted by the landlady, the chambermaids and all the kitchen wenches in the hotel. Aristide had to turn them out and lock his door. “This is excellent,” said he, apostro- phizing the thoroughly fed, washed, and now sleeping child. “This is superb. As in every hotel there are women, and as every woman thinks she can be & much better mother than I, 0 in every hotel we visit we shall find a staff of trained and enthusi- astic nurses. Jean, you will live like a little cog en pate.” The night passed amid various ex- cursions on the part of Aristide and alarms on the part of Jean. Some- times the child lay so still that Aris- tide arose to see whether he was alive. Sometimes he gave such proofs of vitality that Aristide, in ter- ror lest he should awaken the whole hotel, walked him about the room chanting lullables. This was in a cordance with Jean's views on luxury. He “goo'd” with joy. Whan Aristide tide snatched him up and he “goo’ again. At last Aristide fed him de: sléep a low. It is a fearsome thing for man to be left alone in the dead of ight with a young baby. “T'll got used to it,” said Aristide. % %% HE next morning he purchased s amid the perplexed benisons of the ‘landlady and her satellites. which ever mortals embarked. ‘coming & magnet for the women, and déing of & good-humored-and reMick- basket, which he lashed ingeni-|ural thing for women to do, ously on the left-hand seat of the | when this sweet English lady moth- car, and & cyshion, which he fitted | ered Jean it seemed to matter a great into the basket. The berth prepared, | deal. She lifted Jean and himself to he deposited the sumptuously-ap-|a higher plane. Her touch was a parelled Jean therein and drove away, | conseeration. 4ng pature, he helped on the sale of | English lady. BY W. the cure prodigiously. He his keep, as Aristide declared/: ex- ultation. Soon Aristide form col- lectlon of his tricks. and doings: whorewith he would entertalm the chance acquaintances of his- vaga- bondage. To a permanent companion he would have grown Insufferable. He invented him a career from the day of his birth, chronicled the com- ing of the first tooth, wept over the demise of the fictitious mother, and in his imaginative way, convinced himself of his fatherhood. And every day the child crept deeper Into the man’s sunny heart. Together they had many wanderings and many adventures, The wheezy, crazy mechaniism of the car went to bits in unexpected places. They to- bogganed down hills without a brake at the imminent peril of their lives. They suffered the indignity of being towed by wine wagons. They spent hours by the wayside while Aristide took her to pieces and, sometimes, with the help of a passing motorist, put her together again. Sometimes, too, an inn boasted no landlady, only a disheveled end over-driven cham- bermaid, who refused to wash Jean. Aristide washed and powdered Jean himself, the landlord lounging by, pipe in mouth, administering sugges- tions. Once Jean grew ill, and Aris- tide In terror summoned the doctor, who told him that he had filled the child up with milk to the bursting point. Yet, in spite of heterogeneous nursing and exposure to sun and rain and plercing mistral, Jean throve ex- ceedingly, and, to Aristide’s delight, began to cut another tooth. The vain man began to regard himself as an expert in denticulture. * ¥ * ¥ A'l‘ the end of a falrly-wide circuit, Aristide, with empty store boxes and pleasantly full pockets, arrived at the little town of Aix-en-Provence. He had arrived there not without dif- ficulty. On the outskirts the car, which had been coaxed reluctantly along for meny weary kilometers. had groaned, rattled, whirred, given a couple of convulsive leaps and stood stock-still. This was one of her pret- ty ways. He was used to them, and hitherto he had been able to wheedle her into resumed motion. But this time, with all his cunning and per- spiration, he could not induce another throb in the tired engines. A friend- ly motorist towed them to the Hotel de Paris in the Cours Mirabeau. Hav. ing arranged for his room and given Jean in charge of the landlady, he proaured some helping hands and pushed the car to the nearest garage. There he gave orders for the car to be put into running condition for the fol- lowing morning and returned to the hotel. He found Jean in the vestibule, sprawling sultanesquely on the land- lady's lap, the center of an admiring sircle, which consisted of two little girls in pigtails, an ancient peasant woman and two English ladies of ob- vious but graceful spinsterhood. “Here is the father.” said the land- lady. He had already explained Jean to the startled woman—Ilandladies were always startled at Jean's unconven- tional advent. “Madame,” he had said, according to rigid formula, “this is my son. I am taking him from his mother, who is dead, to an aunt who is an invalid, so he is alone on my hands. I teseech you to let some kind woman attend to his nec- essities” There was no need for further explanation. Aristide, thus introduc- ed, bowed politely, removed his Cru- soe cap and smiled luminously at the assembled women. They resumed their antiphonal chorus of worship. The brown. merry, friendly brat had something of Aristide’s personal charm. He had a bubble and a “goo” for every one. Aristide looked on in great delight. Jean was a son to be proud of. “Ah! qu'il est fort—fort comme un ‘Ture.’ “Regardez ses dents. “The darling thing! “I1 est-—oh, dear!—il est ravis- sante"—witk a disastrous plunge into gender. “Tiens! il rit. rire.” “To think,” sald the younger Eng- lishwoman to her sister, “of this wee mite traveling about in an open motor!” . “He's having the time of his life. He enjoys it as much as I do,” sald Aristide, in his excelient English. ¥ x % % C'est mo! ul le fais TH! lady started. She was a well- bred, good-humored woman in the early thirties, stout, with red- dish halr, and irregular thoughk come- ly features. Her sister was thin, faded, sandy and kind-looking. “I thought you were French” she said apologetically. “So I am,” replied Aristide. “Pro- vencal of Provence, Meridional of the Midi, Marseillais of Marseilles. ‘But you talk English perfectly. “I've lived in your beautiful coun- try,” sald Aristide. “You have the bonniest boy,” said the elder ladx “How old is he?” ine months, three weeks and a day,” sald Aristide promptly. The younger lady bent over the miraculous infant. “Can I take him? Est-ce que je puis—oh, dear!” She turned & whim- sical face to Aristide. He translated. The landlady sur- rendered the babe. The lady danced put him back to bed he howled. Aris-'him with the epinster's charming yet with instinctive about the hall, awkwardness, security, feminine perately, dandled him eventually to|While the little girls in pigtalls, nd returned to an excited pil- | daughters of the house, followed like a|adoratory angels in an altar-piece, and the old peasant woman looked benignly on, & myriad-wrinkled St Elisabeth. Aristide had seen Jean dandled by dozens of women during their briéf comradeship. He had thought little of it, as it was the nat- but It was thé hour of the day when infants of nine months should be Thus bégan the oddest Odyssey on | washed and put to bed. TLe landlady, The | announcing tke fact, held out her man with the automobile, the corn|arms. Jean clung to his English cure and the baby grew to be legend- |nurse, who plgyed the fascinating ary in the villages of Provence.|@ame of prefending to eat his hand. When the days were fine, Jean in his' The landlady ‘had . not that; accom- basket assisted at the drarmatic per- [ plishment. Bhe was dull and prac- formance in the market place. Be-|tical. “Come and be washed,” she said. “Oh, do let me come, too,” cried the J. LOCKE “Blen volontiers, mademoiselle " said the other. “C'est par ici.” * k% ¥ TRE English lady held Jean out fon the paternal good-night. Aristide d the child in her arms. The ac tion brought about, for the momen:, & curious andG sweet intimacy. r is passionately fond of aid the elder lady, in smil ing apology. “And you?" “I, too. But Anne—my sister—w! not let me have a chance when she is by.” After dinner Aristide went up, as usual, to his room to see that Jean was alive, painless and asleep. Find ing him awake, he sat by his side and with the earnestness of a nursery maid, patted him off to siumber. The: he crept out on tiptoe and went down stairs. Outside the hotel he cam. upon the two sisters sitting on bench and drinking coffee. Th‘o night was fine, the terraces of the neigh boring cafes were filled with people and all the life of Aix not at the cafe- promenaded up and down the wid« and pleasant avenue. The ladies smiled. How was the boy He gave the latest news. Permissio: to join them at their coffee was gra clously given. A walter brought chair and he sat down. Conversation drifted from the baby to genera! topics. The ladies told the simple story of their tour. They had been to Nice and Marseilles, and they wer« ®oing on the next day to Avignor They also told their name—Honey wood. He gathered that the elde: was Janet, the younger Anne. The: lived at Chislehurst when they wers in England, and often came up tu London to attend the Queen's Hal concerts and the dramatic perform ances at His Majesty's Theater. A: guileless, though as self-reliant, ger tlewomen as sequestered England could produce. Aristide impression able and responsive, fell at once int the key of their talk. He has told me that their society produced o: him the effect of (Le cool hands « saints against his cheek.' * x % x A’I‘ last the conversation inevitab.: returned to Jean. The landlady had related the tragic history of the dead mother and the invalid aunt They deplored the orphaned state of the precious babe. For he was prec- fous, they declared. Miss Anne had taken him to her heart “If only you had seen him in his bath, Janet She turned to Aristide. “I'm afraid.” she sald, very softly, hesitating a lit- tle—"T'm afraid this must be a sad Journey for you.” He made a wry mouth. The sym- pathy was so sincere, 50 womanly. That which was generous in him re- volted against acceptance. *Mademoiselle,” said he, “T can play a farce with landladles—it happens to be convenient—in fact, necessary. But ‘with you—no. You are different. Jean 1s not my child, and who his parents are I've not the remotest ide: “Not your child?" They looked at him incredulously. “I will tell you—in confidence sald h Jean's history was related {n all its plcturesque detalls; the horrors of the life of an enfant trouve luridly de- picted. The sisters listened with tears in their foolish eves.. Behind the tears Anne’s grew bright. When he had finished she stretched out ler hand tmpulsively. “Oh, I call it splendid of you'" He took the hand and, In his grace- ful French fashion, touched it with his lips. She flushed, having expected, in her English way, that he would grasp it “Your commendation, mademolselle is sweet to hear,” said he. “I kope he will grow up to be a true comfort to you, M. Pujol,” sald Miss Janet. “I can understand a woman doing what you" done, but scarcely & man,” said Miss Anne. “But, dear mademoiselle” cried Aristide, with a large gesture, “can- not & man have his heart touched, his —his—ses entrailles, enfin—stirred b: baby fingers? Why should love of the helpless and the innocent be denied him?"* “Why, Indeed” sald Miss Janet Miss Anne said, humbly: “T oniy meant that your devotion to Jean was all the more beautiful, M. Pujol.” Soon after this they parted, the night air having grown chill. Both ladies shook hands with him warmly Anne’s hand lingered the fraction of second longer in his than Janet's * % % X ARJBTIDE wandered down the ga: avenue Into,the open road an looked at the stars, reading in the.: splendor a brilliant destiny for Jeg: He felt, in his sensitive way, that the two sweet-zouled Englishwomen ha« deepened and sactified his love fo Jean. When he returned to the hotel he kissed his incongruous roommate wit! the gentleness of a woman. In the morning he went round t. the garage. The foreman mechanician advanced to meet him. “Well?” “There is nothing to be done, mon- sleur.’ “What do, you mean by ‘nothing to be done’'?” asked Aristide. The other shrugged his sturd: shoulders. “She is worn out. She needs new carburetion, new cylinders, new wate) circulation, mnew lubrication, new valves, new brakes, new ignition, new gears, new bolt: new nuts, new everything. In short, she is not re- pairable.” Aristide listened in incredulous amazement. His automobile, his won- derful, beautifu!, clashing, dashing automobile unrepairable! It was rm- possible. But & quarter of an hour's demonstration by the foreman con- vinced him. The car was dead. The engine would mever whir again. All the petrol in the world would not stimulate her into life. Never again would he sit behind that wneel re Joicing in the insolence of speed. Thec car, which, in spite of her manifold infirmities, he had fondly imagined to be immortal, had run her last course. Aristide felt f{aint. “And there is nothing to be done>" ¢ “Nothing, monsieur, Fifty francs is il that she is worth.” “At any rate,” said Aristide, “send the basket to the Hotel de Paris.” He went out of the garage like a man in & dream. At the door he turn-| ed to take a last look at the prid of his life. He: was toward him, (Continued on Sixth Page.)