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The Strange Experience Of Alkali Dick
by
Dick, with a slight dry reserve, “reckoned that he had.”
“They were made by the scythes and pitchforks of the peasants in the Revolution of ’93, when the count was emigre, as one says with reason ‘skedadelle,’ to England. Let them look the next time that they burn not the chateau,–‘bet your lif’!'”
“The chateau,” said Dick, with affected carelessness. “Wot’s the blamed thing like?”
It was an old affair,–with armor and a picture-gallery,–and bricabrac. He had never seen it. Not even as a boy,–it was kept very secluded then. As a man–you understand–he could not ask the favor. The Comtes de Fontonelles and himself were not friends. The family did not like a cafe near their sacred gates,–where had stood only the huts of their retainers. The American would observe that he had not called it “Cafe de Chateau,” nor “Cafe de Fontonelles,”–the gold of California would not induce him. Why did he remain there? Naturally, to goad them! It was a principle, one understood. To GOAD them and hold them in check! One kept a cafe,–why not? One had one’s principles,–one’s conviction,–that was another thing! That was the kind of “‘air-pin”–was it not?–that HE, Gustav Ribaud, was like!
Yet for all his truculent socialism, he was quick, obliging, and charmingly attentive to Dick and his needs. As to Dick’s horse, he should have the best veterinary surgeon–there was an incomparable one in the person of the blacksmith–see to him, and if it were an affair of days, and Dick must go, he himself would be glad to purchase the beast, his saddle, and accoutrements. It was an affair of business,–an advertisement for the cafe! He would ride the horse himself before the gates of the park. It would please his customers. Ha! he had learned a trick or two in free America.
Dick’s first act had been to shave off his characteristic beard and mustache, and even to submit his long curls to the village barber’s shears, while a straw hat, which he bought to take the place of his slouched sombrero, completed his transformation. His host saw in the change only the natural preparation of a voyager, but Dick had really made the sacrifice, not from fear of detection, for he had recovered his old swaggering audacity, but from a quick distaste he had taken to his resemblance to the portrait. He was too genuine a Westerner, and too vain a man, to feel flattered at his resemblance to an aristocratic bully, as he believed the ancestral De Fontonelles to be. Even his momentary sensation as he faced the Cure in the picture-gallery was more from a vague sense that liberties had been taken with his, Dick’s, personality, than that he had borrowed anything from the portrait.
But he was not so clear about the young girl. Her tender, appealing voice, although he knew it had been addressed only to a vision, still thrilled his fancy. The pluck that had made her withstand her fear so long–until he had uttered that dreadful word–still excited his admiration. His curiosity to know what mistake he had made–for he knew it must have been some frightful blunder–was all the more keen, as he had no chance to rectify it. What a brute she must have thought him–or DID she really think him a brute even then?–for her look was one more of despair and pity! Yet she would remember him only by that last word, and never know that he had risked insult and ejection from her friends to carry her to her place of safety. He could not bear to go across the seas carrying the pale, unsatisfied face of that gentle girl ever before his eyes! A sense of delicacy–new to Dick, but always the accompaniment of deep feeling–kept him from even hinting his story to his host, though he knew–perhaps BECAUSE he knew–that it would gratify his enmity to the family. A sudden thought struck Dick. He knew her house, and her name. He would write her a note. Somebody would be sure to translate it for her.