"He went and bathed after sunset—on his own responsibility and without mentioning it to any one. How it happened I don't know—nobody knows. He was a good swimmer, I believe, but very blind without his glasses. He undressed behind a rock on the shore, which is against the regulations. His body was not found till two days after, three leagues down the coast.
"He had an aged mother, who came to Étretat. It was harrowing! They were people who had seen better days," etc., etc., etc.
And so no more of le Grand Bonzig.
Nor did Barty ever again meet Lirieux, in whose existence a change had also been wrought by fortune; but whether for good or evil I can't say. He was taken to Italy and Greece by a wealthy relative. What happened to him there—whether he ever came back, or succeeded or failed—Barty never heard! He dropped out of Barty's life as completely as if he had been drowned like his old friend.
These episodes, like many others past and to come in this biography, had no particular influence on Barty Josselin's career, and no reference to them is to be found in anything he has ever written. My only reason for telling them is that I found them so interesting when he told me, and so characteristic of himself. He was "bon raconteur." I'm afraid I'm not, and that I've lugged these good people in by the hair of the head; but I'm doing my best. "La plus belle fille au monde ne peut donner que ce qu'elle a!"
I look to my editor to edit me—and to my illustrator to pull me through.
That autumn (1856) my father went to France for six weeks, on business. My sister Ida went with the Gibsons to Ramsgate, and I remained in London with my mother. I did my best to replace my father in Barge Yard, and when he came back he was so pleased with me (and I think with himself also) that he gave me twenty pounds, and said, "Go to Paris for a week, Bob, and see Barty, and give him this, with my love."
And "this" was another twenty‑pound note. He had never given me such a sum in my life—not a quarter of it; and "this" was the first time he had ever tipped Barty.
Things were beginning at last to go well with him. He had arranged to sell the vintages of Bordeaux and Champagne, as well as those of Burgundy; and was dreaming of those of Germany and Portugal and Spain. Fortune was beginning to smile on Barge Yard, and ours was to become the largest wine business in the world—comme tout un chacun sait.