Alas for the carrés à deux sous! Of them as of many of our joys we must say Ichabod.
"The time came when I ran out of money—but altogether out of money, you understand. I waited until I was pretty hungry before I told anybody. Then the American Consul did something for me. Somebody gave me a pair of shoes. Other persons gave me money, and the day was saved. Again I became absorbed in my work, to be interrupted by poverty. This time I went to the pastor of the American Church. He looked me over. Must have thought I was a good case, as he saw to it that several people did something for me. After all, it comes easily, and I have lived like that for years. Sometimes my clothes don't fit very well, but what is the difference. It has grown upon me until I am utterly unfit to earn my living. You get nothing twice from the Consulate, and churches are not good for much. Besides, the churches keep a list of dead-beats. It is the individual Americans one meets that give away their money carelessly. I found somebody who listened sympathetically to my hard-luck story. The story itself was no lie the first time. But it was so easy—there was the temptation. I tell you frankly that I fell. I discovered that I could do it again when the hard-luck story was not true."
"I hunted you up," continued Mr. Thompson, "with the idea of getting something out of you. I suppose if I put as much energy into holding down a job as I do this, I could earn my living. But the habit of living on the kindness of other people has me in its grip, and I do not stick to work when it is given to me. I have been pretty faithful to the Bibliothèque all these years, for it is heated there. I can read my paper, write some letters and study a little on my church history. The thesis is growing slowly, but that is all I can say I have done these twelve years.
"There are other people who do the same thing, you know. You have met them without knowing it. Artist fellows, youngsters as well as old ones, understand the game. Do you know how they work it? It is known now, for instance, that you receive informally every Wednesday. There are other days and hosts of women. So it goes. A fellow can get along very cheaply like that. Pay thirty or forty francs a month for a place to live and work, two sous each morning for café au lait passed across the zinc—good coffee too, as you perhaps know. They let you bring your roll with you if you like. It will cost a sou. One roll and a cup of coffee is enough after you get used to it. Your only large expense is the noon meal.
"Generally the evening meal you can pick up. You find in the social register the names of all the ladies, kind and unobservant, who have days at home. You stick a big paper on your wall and mark it off in seven columns, one for each day of the week. You make a list of the women who have receiving days, and you drop in somewhere every afternoon about five-thirty. The tea party is pretty well finished, but there is usually plenty of food left. The ladies have to provide for more than really come. You do that yourself, Mrs. Gibbons. The ladies do not notice that you eat more than one or two sandwiches and plenty of cake. If they do notice it, it makes them feel happy, and there is your supper. If you do it systematically with a list like mine, you do not have to go to Mrs. X's house more than twice in the winter. A lot of people in the American colony have receiving days. It is easy enough to know them. All of the boys know a few, and we take each other around. The artist fellows have a cinch. All they have to do, if they have a conscience, is to present the hostesses to whom they are the most indebted, with a couple of worthless sketches. Nobody ever suspects anything.
"You can slide in and out in the Latin Quarter and meet any number of charming people. They never stay too long and there are always new ones coming in. No hostess is superior to the flattery implied when her tea is appreciated. I have learned to praise sandwiches so that I can get a fair supply. I write an article occasionally, and that covers my rent. Clothes are an easy matter. Any number of people in Paris will give away clothes. You see I am a deadbeat. I was a deadbeat to-day when I saw in the Herald that Mrs. Gibbons was going to be at home this afternoon."
Mr. Thompson got up to go.
"Where did you put your overcoat?" asked Herbert.
"I have none," said my guest.
Herbert's eyes met mine. I telegraphed "Yes."