THE CAFE AT THE CORNER OF THE "BOULE MICHE"
The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder ... is but a pair of spectacles, behind which there is no eye.
Carlyle (Sartor Resartus, Bk. I. ch. x.)
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Longfellow—The Dinner at the Villebois' House, pt. iv.
"Comment ça va, monsieur le docteur? Pardon that I interrupt your reverie."
The greeting was addressed to a gentleman below middle age who was seated before one of the little round tables at the corner of one of the side streets leading into the Boulevard Michel. He was idly toying with a small glass of eau sucrée between four and five o'clock on a glorious afternoon in the autumn of 19—.
Somewhat short in stature, and slightly built, he was favoured by nature with a pleasing expression, and bright auburn curly locks which matched his bronzed and weather-beaten face. Although his features bore traces of hardship and toil, there was nothing in his appearance to attract any very special remarks from the passers-by. And yet many of them would have turned and looked again at that gentlemanly little figure, had they but known who it was who sat there practically unnoticed by, and unnoticing, the endless stream of afternoon strollers. He had ordered an eau sucrée, and it certainly was that simple beverage which stood in that glass before him, but it might as well have been tincture of myrrh, or weak tea, or even vinegar, for all the great Dr. Riche knew or cared.
About five feet four inches of his slim neatly-dressed body was sitting there without a doubt, but his mind was far away debating the intricacies of a very delicate operation on the base of the brain, at which he had assisted that morning at the Hotel Dieu. An opening had been made through the nose into the skull of a patient, and the offending tumour had been removed—to all appearances successfully. All the same, the doctor was pondering deeply over the probabilities of the patient's ultimate recovery, and was mentally arguing the pros and cons of this very interesting case, when a gentle tapping of a gold-mounted cane on the marble surface of the little round table in front of him, accompanied by a jovial laugh and a hearty greeting, brought him suddenly down from the regions of the Sella Turcica.
"Well, monsieur le docteur, you have not forgotten me then?"
"Villebois! mon cher, I am delighted to see you. You seem surprised to see me here, eh! Well, as a matter of fact, I may tell you I have only quite recently returned to Paris for a holiday after five years practising in Algiers, and have not yet had time to renew my old acquaintances."