The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 1, 1906, Page 8

sceir w he would have s ta collect at Le the middle of the g whether 1 ghould order 2bo rose on = sudden still r. Something fell on the floor over eads and rolled across it, and imme- g girl, barefoot and short- e riedly and blindly a saucepan, with & ges- >ment would »>and had not r back ¥ will do for horses must they, w we eat grass? t for you, and wheaten and are beggars for you! hievipg wretch, who tax a the rich go free; who—" woman ner husband cried, er short, with a pale face. , he will hear vou!” woman was too far gone in obey. “What! and is it mnot she answered, her eyes glittering. not tomarrow go to Le Mesnil geeze the poor? Ay, and will not the corn dealer, and Philippon, merchant, come to him with brives and go free? And De Fonvelle nd De Curtin—they with & de forsooth! thelr nobility mddrru.n his and go free? Ay, and—" But how long has yaur':rdl‘nl up- atairs been here?” I interrup! “Two days, monsieur,” she answered, ead y two at- to play pompou: h an a ed at me taltering a room; and com- minutes it dia so, stily, and when instead of to-my who had 1 to had ared, odd musement. aring a rving man. be had been ; but he rds out of my mouth by his . 1 going before me through tchen, he ope v door which led outer a our conver d ing a seco enter. “But it is a good roo you please, a fire shall be light shutters re closed,” he contt we passed him, Maignan and La Trape bagga “but they shall Hall Pierre! Plerre, 1 these s On the word hi: voice rose—and broke; and Iin a moment the door through which we ¥ all passed un- suspect! e to with a crash behind us. Before we could move we heard the bars drop across it A} were out- witted! We were prisoners. In the first shock of the discovery, g the bars drop home, we stood gaping, and wondering what it meant, Then Maignan, with an oa the door and tried it—fruitiessly. ed him more at my leisure, and y voice asked angrily what this Do No one moved, though Maignan con- tinued to rattle the door furiously. “Do you hear?’ I repeated, between anger and amazement at the fix in which we had placed ourselves. “Open!” But, aithough the murmur of voices outside the door grew louder, no one answered, and I had time to take in the full absurdity of the position. Maignan was turious, La Trape vicious, while my own equanimity scarcely supported me against the thought that we should probably be where we were until the arrival of my people, whom I had directed mty wife to send to Le Mesnil at noon mnext day. Their coming would free us, indeed, but at the cost of ridicule and laughter. Wincing at the thoffght, I bade Maig- nan be silent, and, drumming on the door myself, 1 called for the landlord. Some one who had been glving directions in a tone of great consequence ceased speak- ing, and came close to the door. After listening a moment, he struck it with his band. “Silence, rogues!”” he cried. “Do you hear? Silence there, unless you want your ears nailed to the post.” *“Fool!” 1 answered. “Open the door instantly! Are you all msd here, that you shut up the King’s servants in this way?” “The King’s servants!” he cried, jeering at us. “Where are they?” “Here!” 1 answered, swallowing my rage as well as I might. “I am Monsieur Gringuet's deputy, and if you do not this instant—" “Monsieur Gringuet's deputy! Ho, ho!” he sald. “Why, the fool, Monsieur Grin- guet’s deputy arrived two hours before you. You must get up a lttle earlfer another time.” 2= N Monsleur Gringuet, T looked at Maignan and La Trape, and they at me, and by the light of the lanthorn which the latter held I saw that they were smiling, doubtless at the dilemma in which we had innocent- 1y placed ourselves. After & moment's reflection I called out to know who the speaker on the other side was. “I am Monsieur de Fonvelle,” he an- swered. e “Well, Monsieur de Fonvelle,” I re- plied, “I advise you to have a care what you do. I am Monsieur Grin- guet's depfity. The other man is an impostor. He has no papers.” “Oh, yes, he has!” he answered, mocking ' me. “Monsieur Curtin has seen them, my fine fellow, and he is not one to pay momey without= war- rant.” At this several laughed, and a qua+ vering voice chimed in with, “Oh, yes, he has papers! I have seen them. Bti in a case—" “Tut, tut! it is all right.” “It is all wrong!” I retorted. “Wrong, I say! Go to your mamn;, and you will find him gone—gone with your money, Monsiéur Curtin.” Two or three laughed, but I heard the sound of feet hurrying away, and T guessed that Curtin had retired to sat- isfy himself. Neéverthless, the moment which followed was an anxious one, since, if my random shot missed, I knew that I should find myself in a worse position than before. But\judg- ing—from the fact that the deputy had not confronted us himself—that he was &n impostor, to whom Gringuet's {ll- ness had suggested the scheme on which I had myself hit, I hoped for the be and, to be sure, In a moment an outcry arose in the house and quick- ly spread; and then the crowd came tramping back, all wrangling and speaking at once. At the door the chattering ceased and THE SAN the Tax Gatheres in & moment the door was thrown open and I walked out with what dignity I might. Outside the scene which met my eyes might have been, under other circumstances, diverting. Before me stood the landlord, bowing, with a light in each hand, as if the thore he bent hia backbone the more he must propitiate me; while a fat, middle-aged man at his elbow, whom I took to be Fonvelle, smiléd feebly at me with a chapfallen expression. A little aside Curtin, a shriveled old fellow, was wringing his hands over his loss, and behind clus- tered a curious crowd of busy-bodles, who had much ado to control their mer- riment. The host began to mutter apologies, but I cut him short. “I willtalk to you tomorrow,” I said in.a voice which made him shake in his shoe: “Now give me supper, lights and a room— and hurry. For you, Monsieur de Fon- velle, you are an ass! And for the gen- tleman there, who has filled the rogue's purse, he will do well another time to pay the King his ques.” When I made my appearance next morning in the marketplace and took my seat, with my two attendants, at a table by the corn measures, this re- serve had so far impressed the people that the smiles which greeted me scarcely exceeded those which com- monly welcome a tax collector. Under these circumstances we quickly settled to work, no one entertaining the slight- est suspicion; and La Trape, who could accommodate himself to anything, play- ing the part of clerk, I was presently recelving money and hearing excuses, the minute acquaintance with the rou- tine of the finances which I had made it my business to aoquire rendering the work easy to mes ‘We Had not been long engaged, how- ever, when Fonvelle put in an appear- ance,-and, elbowing the peasants aside, FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. “My name, fhonsteur, Is Philippon. I am & 1 made a sign to him that I could not hear. “I am the silk merchant,” he contin- wed pretty audibly, but with a suspi- clous glance behind him. “Probably you have—" Again I signed to him that I could not hear. “You have heard of me?” “From Monsleur Gringuet?” I sald, wvery loudly. “Yes, he answered in a similar tone, for, aware that deaf persons cannot hear their own voicés, and are seldom able to judge ~how loudly they are speaking, I had led him to this. “And that you will do as he dld?” ?” I asked. “In what way?” He touched his pocket with a stealthy gesture, unseen by the people behind him. Again I made a sign as if I could not hear. “Take the usual little gift?” he said, finding himself compelled to spealk. “I cannot hear a word,” I bellowed. By this time the crowd was shaking with laughter. “Accept the usual gift?” he sald, his fat, pale face perspiring and his little pig’s eyes regarding me balefully. 'And let you pay one-quarter? I said. “Yes,” he answered. But this and the simplicity with which he said it drew so loud a roar ot latghter from the crowd as pene- trated even to his dulled senses. Turn- ing abruptly, as if a bee had stung him, he found the place convulsed with merriment, and, perceiving in an In- stant that I bhad played upon him, though he could not understand how or why, he glared about him a moment, muttered something which I cquid not catch and staggered away with -the gait of a drunken man. After this the crowd hesitated to come forward, even to pay, and I was consider- ing what I would do next when a commo- They halted an instant, looking at the unusual concourse. Then Boisrueil, see- ing me, and that I was hoiding some sort of court, spurred his bhorss through the press and saluted me. “Let half a dozen of your varlets dis- mount and guard these men,” I said; “and do you, u rogue,” I continued, addressing Gringuet, “answer me and tell me the How much does each of these knaves give you to cheat the King and your master? Curtin first How much does he give you?” “My lord,” he answered, pale and shaking, yet with a mutinous gleam in his eyes, “I have a right to know frst before whom I’ stand.” “Enough,” I thundered, “that it is before one who has the right to ques- tion you! Answer me, villain, and be quick. What is the sum of Curtin's bribe? He stood white and mute. “Fonvelle's?” “I ake no brives,” he mutter “Liar!” I exclaimed. “Liar, do- vours widows’ kouses and poor men’s corn! Who grinds the weak and says it {s the King, and let the rich go freel Answer me, and answer the truth. How much do these men give you?” “Nothing,” he said deflantly. “Very well,” I answered; “then I will have the list. It is in your shoes. It is in your shoe,” I repeated, pointing to his gouty foot, “Maignan, off with his shoe and look In I Disregarding his shrieks of pain, they tore it off and looked in it. There was no list. “Oft with his stocking,” I said reund~ ly. “Itis there.” He flung himself down at that, curs- ing and protesting by turns. But I re- membered the trampled corm and the girl’s, bleeding face, and I was Inex- orable. Still no list was found. “He has 1t.” I persisted, “we have tried the shoe and we have tried the stocking, now we must try the foot. Fetch a stirrup leather and do you hold him, and let one of the grooms “IN_THE KING'3 NAME’ LA TEAFLCEITV. begged to speak with me apart. I rose and stepped back with him two or three paces, on Wwhich he winked at me in a very knowing fashion. “I am Monsieur de Fonvelle,” he sald. And he winked a; ‘Ah!” I said. ‘My name is not In your list.” “I find it there,” I replied, ralsing a hand to my ear “Put, tut! You do not understand,” he muttered. ‘“Has not Gringuet told you?” “What?" I said, pretending to be a lit- tle deaf. “Has not Gringuet told you?” he re- peated, reddening with anger, and.this time speaking, on compulsion, so loudly that the peasants could hear him. I answered him In the same tone. “Yes," I said roundly. “He has told me, of course, that every year you give him two hundred livres to omit your name.” He glanced behind him with an ozth. *“Man, are you mad?’ he gasped, his jaw “They will hear you?” * I sald loudly, “I mean them to hear me.” 1 do not know what he thought of this —perhaps that I was mad. But, finding every one laughing, with an oath, he turned on his neel and was out of sight in 3 moment. [} I was about to return to my seat when a pursy, pale-faced man, with small eyes and & heavy jowl, whom I-had before noticed, pushed his way through the line and came to me. Though his neighbors were all laughing, he was sober, and in a moment I understood why. “I am very deaf,” he said in a whisper. LET HO JIAN INTEXFERL tion In one corner of the square drew my eyes to that quarter. Then, the crowd dividing and making way for him, I per- celved the real Gringuet—Gringuet, who rode through the market with an alr of grim majesty, with one foot in a huge slipper and eyes glaring with {ll temper. On seeing me In my chair of state he merely grinned in a viclous way and cried to the nearest not to let me escape. A glance showed me that if I would not be drawn into an unseemly brawl I must act, and meeting Maignan's eager eye fixed upon my face, I nodded. In a second he seized the unsuspecting Gringuet by the neck, snatched him up from the chair and flung him half a dozen paces away. The violence of the action and Maig- nan’'s heat were such that the nearest drew back affrighted, and even Gringuet's servants recolled, while the market people gasped with astonishment. But I knew that the respite would last a moment only and I stood forward. “Arrest that man,” I said, pointing to the collector, who was groveling on the ground, nursing his foot and shricking foul threats at us. “Raise him up,” I continued, ‘and set him before me, and Curtin also, and Fonvelle and Philippon and Lescaut, the corn dealer; if he is here.” I spoke boldly and so mighty is the habit of command that the crofd, far from resisting, thrust forward the men I named. Still, I could not count on this obedience, and it was with pleas- ure that I saw at this moment, as I looked over the heads of the crowd, a party of horsemen entering the square. give him Gozen on that fodt." But at \that he gave way: he flung himself on his knees. screaming for mercy. “The list!” I said. “I have no list! wailed. “Then give It me out of your head. Curtin, how much?" He glanced at the man I named, and shivered, and for a moment was silent. “Forty crowns,” he muttered. “Fonvelle?" “The same.” I made him confess also the sums which he had recelved from Lescaut and Philippon, and then the names of seven others who had been in‘the habit of bribing him. Satisfled that he had S0 far told the truth, I bade him put on his stocking and shoe. “And now,’ I sald to Boisruell, when this was done, “take him to the whipping post there 'nd tie him up, and see that gach man of the eleven gives him a stripe for every crown with which he has bribed him—and good ones, or I will have them tled up in his place. It i such men as these give kings a bad name. Take him away, and see you flay him well."” He sprang up them, forgetting his gout, and made a frantic attempt to eschpe. But in a moment he was over- come, and though I did not walt to see the sentence carried out the shrill screams he uttered under the punish- ment reached me, and satisfied me that Fonvelle and his fellows were not holding their handm I have none!” he 4