which little sermon contrasted agreeably with his usual remarks concerning, and in the presence of, les femmes, whereof the essence lay in a single phrase of prepositional significance—
“bon pour coucher avec”
he would say shrilly, his puny eyes assuming an expression of amorous wisdom which was most becoming….
One day we were all upon afternoon promenade, (it being beau temps for that part of the world), under the auspices of by all odds one of the littlest and mildest and most delicate specimens of mankind that ever donned the high and dangerous duties of a planton. As B. says: “He always looked like a June bride.” This mannikin could not have been five feet high, was perfectly proportioned (unless we except the musket upon his shoulder and the bayonet at his belt), and minced to and fro with a feminine grace which suggested—at least to les deux citoyens of These United States—the extremely authentic epithet “fairy.” He had such a pretty face! and so cute a moustache! and such darling legs! and such a wonderful smile! For plantonic purposes the smile—which brought two little dimples into his pink cheeks—was for the most part suppressed. However it was impossible for this little thing to look stern: the best he could do was to look poignantly sad. Which he did with great success, standing like a tragic last piece of uneaten candy in his big box at the end of the cour, and eyeing the sinful hommes with sad pretty eyes. Won’t anyone eat me?—he seemed to ask.—I’m really delicious, you know, perfectly delicious, really I am.
To resume: everyone being in the cour, it was well filled, not only from the point of view of space but of sound. A barnyard crammed with pigs, cows, horses, ducks, geese, hens, cats and dogs could not possibly have produced one-fifth of the racket that emanated, spontaneously and inevitably, from the cour. Above which racket I heard tout à coup a roar of pain and surprise; and looking up with some interest and also in some alarm, beheld The Young Pole backing and filling and slipping in the deep ooze under the strenuous jolts, jabs and even haymakers of The Fighting Sheeney, who, with his coat off and his cap off and his shirt open at the neck, was swatting luxuriously and for all he was worth that round helpless face and that peaches-and-cream complexion. From where I stood, at a distance of six or eight yards, the impact of the Sheeney’s fist on The Young Pole’s jaw and cheeks was disconcertingly audible. The latter made not the slightest attempt to defend himself, let alone retaliate; he merely skidded about, roaring and clutching desperately out of harm’s way his long white scarf, of which (as I have mentioned) he was extremely proud. But for the sheer brutality of the scene it would have been highly ludicrous. The Sheeney was swinging like a windmill and hammering like a blacksmith. His ugly head lowered, the chin protruding, lips drawn back in a snarl, teeth sticking forth like a gorilla’s, he banged and smote that moon-shaped physiognomy as if his life depended upon utterly annihilating it. And annihilate it he doubtless would have, but for the prompt (not to say punctual) heroism of The June Bride—who, lowering his huge gun, made a rush for the fight; stopped at a safe distance; and began squeaking at the very top and even summit of his faint girlish voice:
“Aux armes! Aux armes!”
which plaintive and intrepid utterance by virtue of its very fragility penetrated the building and released The Black Holster, who bounded through the gate, roaring a salutation as he bounded, and in a jiffy had cuffed the participants apart. “All right, whose fault is this?” he roared. And a number of highly reputable spectators, such as Judas and The Fighting Sheeney himself, said it was The Young Pole’s fault. “Allez! Au cabinot! De suite!” And off trickled the sobbing Young Pole, winding his great scarf comfortingly about him, to the dungeon.
Some few minutes later we encountered The Zulu speaking with Monsieur Auguste. Monsieur Auguste was very sorry. He admitted that The Young Pole had brought his punishment upon himself. But he was only a boy. The Zulu’s reaction to the affair was absolutely profound: he indicated les femmes with one eye, his trousers with another, and converted his utterly plastic personality into an amorous machine for several seconds, thereby vividly indicating the root of the difficulty. That the stupidity of his friend, The Young Pole, hurt The Zulu deeply I discovered by looking at him as he lay in bed the next morning, limply and sorrowfully prone; beside him the empty paillasse, which meant cabinot… his perfectly extraordinary face (a face perfectly at once fluent and angular, expressionless and sensitive) told me many things whereof even The Zulu might not speak, things which in order entirely to suffer he kept carefully and thoroughly ensconced behind his rigid and mobile eyes.
From the day that The Young Pole emerged from cabinot he was our friend. The blague had been at last knocked out of him, thanks to Un Mangeur de Blanc, as the little Machine-Fixer expressively called The Fighting Sheeney. Which mangeur, by the way (having been exonerated from all blame by the more enlightened spectators of the unequal battle) strode immediately and ferociously over to B. and me, a hideous grin crackling upon the coarse surface of his mug, and demanded—hiking at the front of his trousers—
“Bon, eh? Bien fait, eh?”