“W’y I don’t hass ’im now? Because w’en I hass ’im he know’ he’s got to do it! You thing I’m goin’ to kill myseff workin’?”
Nobody said yes, and by and by he found himself alive in the house of Madame Zénobie. The furniture was being sold at auction, and the house was crowded with all sorts and colors of men and women. A huge sideboard was up for sale as he entered, and the crier was crying:—
“Faw-ty-fi’ dollah! faw-ty-fi’ dollah, ladies an’ gentymen! On’y faw-ty-fi’ dollah fo’ thad magniffyzan sidebode! Quarante-cinque piastres, seulement, messieurs! Les knobs vaut bien cette prix! Gentymen, de knobs is worse de money! Ladies, if you don’ stop dat talkin’, I will not sell one thing mo’! Et quarante cinque piastres—faw-ty-fi’ dollah”—
“Fifty!” cried Narcisse, who had not owned that much at one time since his father was a constable; realizing which fact, he slipped away upstairs and found Madame Zénobie half crazed at the slaughter of her assets.
She sat in a chair against the wall of the room the Richlings had occupied, a spectacle of agitated dejection. Here and there about the apartment, either motionless in chairs, or moving noiselessly about, and pulling and pushing softly this piece of furniture and that, were numerous vulture-like persons of either sex, waiting the up-coming of the auctioneer. Narcisse approached her briskly.
“Well, Madame Zénobie!”—he spoke in French—“is it you who lives here? Don’t you remember me? What! No? You don’t remember how I used to steal figs from you?”
The vultures slowly turned their heads. Madame Zénobie looked at him in a dazed way.
No, she did not remember. So many had robbed her—all her life.
“But you don’t look at me, Madame Zénobie. Don’t you remember, for example, once pulling a little boy—as little as that—out of your fig-tree, and taking the half of a shingle, split lengthwise, in your hand, and his head under your arm,—swearing you would do it if you died for it,—and bending him across your knee,”—he began a vigorous but graceful movement of the right arm, which few members of our fallen race could fail to recognize,—“and you don’t remember me, my old friend?”
She looked up into the handsome face with a faint smile of affirmation. He laughed with delight.