There is generally a brisk exhilaration of spirits in the return to any special amusement or light accomplishment associated with the pleasant memories of earlier youth; and remarkably so, I believe, when the amusement or accomplishment has been that of the amateur stage-player. Certainly I have known persons of very grave pursuits, of very dignified character and position, who seem to regain the vivacity of boyhood when disguising look and voice for a part in some drawing-room comedy or charade. I might name statesmen of solemn repute rejoicing to raise and to join in a laugh at their expense in such travesty of their habitual selves.
The reader must not therefore be surprised, nor, I trust, deem it inconsistent with the more serious attributes of Graham’s character, if the Englishman felt the sort of joyful excitement I describe, as, in his way to the cafe Jean Jacques, he meditated the role he had undertaken; and the joyousness was heightened beyond the mere holiday sense of humouristic pleasantry by the sanguine hope that much to effect his lasting happiness might result from the success of the object for which his disguise was assumed.
It was just twenty minutes past nine when he arrived at the cafe Jean Jacques. He dismissed the fiacre and entered.
The apartment devoted to customers comprised two large rooms. The first was the cafe properly speaking; the second, opening on it, was the billiard-room. Conjecturing that he should probably find the person of whom he was in quest employed at the billiard-table, Graham passed thither at once. A tall man, who might be seven-and-forty, with a long black beard, slightly grizzled, was at play with a young man of perhaps twenty-eight, who gave him odds,—as better players of twenty-eight ought to give odds to a player, though originally of equal force, whose eye is not so quick, whose hand is not so steady, as they were twenty years ago. Said Graham to himself, “The bearded man is my Vicomte.” He called for a cup of coffee, and seated himself on a bench at the end of the room.
The bearded man was far behind in the game. It was his turn to play; the balls were placed in the most awkward position for him. Graham himself was a fair billiard-player, both in the English and the French game. He said to himself, “No man who can make a cannon there should accept odds.” The bearded man made a cannon; the bearded man continued to make cannons; the bearded man did not stop till he had won the game. The gallery of spectators was enthusiastic. Taking care to speak in very bad, very English-French, Graham expressed to one of the enthusiasts seated beside him his admiration of the bearded man’s playing, and ventured to ask if the bearded man were a professional or an amateur player.
“Monsieur,” replied the enthusiast, taking a short cutty-pipe from his mouth, “it is an amateur, who has been a great player in his day, and is so proud that he always takes less odds than he ought of a younger man. It is not once in a month that he comes out as he has done to-night; but to-night he has steadied his hand. He has had six petits verres.”
“Ah, indeed! Do you know his name?”
“I should think so: he buried my father, my two aunts, and my wife.”
“Buried?” said Graham, more and more British in his accent; “I don’t understand.”
“Monsieur, you are English.”