“Listen to me, I beseech you!”
“No! I am going to tell them all about it inside there!” and Poufaille, terrible and furious, entered Mère Michel’s.
It was now Phil’s turn to be angry—not against the poor simpleton Poufaille, but Caracal should pay for this! “What will Miss Rowrer think of me with this story of a forged signature?” Phil said to himself.
The idea that his name figured on a picture in the collection of daubs which form the foreign hall of the Luxembourg Museum—and that just when he dreamed he was sure of fame! At the very thought he clenched his fists with fury. So Caracal had bewitched the Fine Arts Commission into accepting such a horror!—or perhaps they were willing to discredit American art by presenting to the public a wretched work bought for a few sous in a junk-shop! And now he, Phil, was to suffer shipwreck from the ridiculousness of it, while Ethel would laugh! What could be Caracal’s aim? With a flash it came to him that the abominable critic wished to make him grotesque and odious at the same time.
“Ah, Caracal,” Phil said to himself, “you are mistaken this time. You shall pay for all this!”
A sudden idea came to him: “What if I should go and punch his head!”
He knew he should find Caracal at home at that hour. It was the day before the feuilleton, impertinent and familiar, which he was in the habit of signing “A Parisian,” or the chronique scandaleuse of courts by an “Old Diplomat,” alternating with art criticisms signed “Caracal.” A cab happened to be passing. Phil hailed it, called out the address to the driver, and—en route! What streets he took, through what quarters, Phil did not know. He knew only that the critic was going to have a bad quarter of an hour. He must have from him a frank explanation, without dodging or subterfuge. This time there would be no duel carried on by winking the eye and shrugging the shoulder. Phil stiffened his arm as the cab stopped short. He jumped to the ground and with three steps reached the concierge’s lodge.
“M. Caracal, if you please?”
“Seventh floor, last door—on the court!”
Phil ran quickly up the stairs. A thick carpet deadened his steps, and he could hear, behind the doors, the sound of pianos or the laughter of children. He imagined to himself the pleasant homes with their lamps surrounded by a circle of golden heads.