"So entirely that I shall not pardon myself until you have done us the favour to sing."
The sergeant held out his hand. "And that's very handsomely said! Given or taken, an apology never goes astray between brave fellows. And, after all," he added, "I had, if I remember, something the better of that argument! You really wish me to sing, then?"
"To be sure I do," Jack assured him, smiling.
Barboux cleared his throat, wagged his head once or twice impassively and trolled out:
"Belle meunière, en passant par ici,
Ne suis-je-t'y pas éloigné d'ltalie.…"
"Belle meunière, en passant par ici,
Ne suis-je-t'y pas éloigné d'ltalie.…"
From this graceful opening the song declined into the grossest filth; and it was easy to see, watching his face, why McQuarters, without understanding a word of French, had accused him of singing "sculduddery." John, though disgusted, could not help being amused by a performance which set him in mind now of a satyr and now of a mincing schoolgirl—vert galant avec un sourire de cantatrice— lasciviousness blowing affected kisses in the intervals of licking its chops. At the conclusion he complimented the singer, with a grave face.
Barboux bowed. "It has, to say true, a little more marrow in it than le Chameau's rossignols and rosiers. Holà, Chameau; the Englishman here agrees that you sing well, but that your matter is watery stuff. You must let me teach you one or two of my songlets—"
"Pardon, m'sieur, mais ca sera un peu trop—trop vif; c'est-à dire pour moi," stammered the little hunchback.
Barboux guffawed. The idea of le Chameau as a ladies' man tickled him hugely, and he tormented the patient fellow with allusions to it, and to his deformity, twenty times a day.