He turned to leave.
“We haven’t paid for the drinks,” said Gaspard, putting his hand in his pocket.
Sagesse laughed. “I never pay here; the place is mine; Jules there manages it for me; he’s one of my people.”
Gaspard was soon to learn how many unfortunates in St. Pierre came under that designation, “One of my people.”
They passed out into the blinding street, under the flower-blue sky. Only twenty yards or so down lay the shop where clothes could be bought. Here Gaspard for twenty-two francs bought two suits of white drill, a pair of white canvas shoes, and an imitation panama. He put on one of the suits, and ordering the other to be sent to the address in the Rue du Morne, walked out again feeling a new man.
In all his past, a shore landing had meant a landing in grimy clothes, smoking and drinking in grimy bars, the foetor of the dock-side. Never before had he found himself walking in a clean, bright city, in clean, new clothes. It was delightful, new, absolutely new, and filled with the freshness of surprise.
A pretty capresse girl glanced at him, and that was the last touch to his vanity; he entered the office of the Compagnie Transatlantique, where Sagesse left him, walking with an assured step, made his deposition before the manager and one of the port authorities who was present, signed it, and then, quite sure of himself and disregarding Sagesse’s advice, demanded an indemnity for his lost kit and his wages up to date.
For once the wise Sagesse had given the wrong advice, for the manager, on his own responsibility, and partly, perhaps, as a tribute to the cleanest and most self-respecting stoker he had ever fallen in with, made out an order for the money demanded, cashed it, and Gaspard left the office richer by a hundred francs.
The tide of luck was in full flood that morning, and he did nothing to spoil it; as he passed along with the moving crowd, cafés called out to him to come in and celebrate the occasion, but he passed them by; he had no need of the help of alcohol; the bright light, the colours, the movement around him, and the light-hearted, yet languorous atmosphere of the gay city set all his southern nature aglow; just as blue eyes are made bluer by blue attire, so the opal of the south in his mind took brighter colours from the bright colours around it.
The insect had found a leaf similar to the leaf on which it was born.