Dangerous Dilemmas: Startling but True

by James Anderson Peddie

"Well, we can pretend to go there, you to see a merchant, and I to forward the interests of the Clarion."

So it was agreed, and this piece of deception was carefully arranged and duly carried out. My better half was unusually complaisant when I told her my intentions, and even went so far as to say I had been working too hard, and the change would do me good. She was glad, she added, that my great friend, Peter Dodd, was accompanying me; he would prevent me feeling dull. She was so very kind in the matter, asking whether the theatres were good at Liverpool, and how I would dispose of my evenings; I felt quite guilty at deceiving her. "You had better take your dress clothes," she said; "you never know what may happen. You might be asked out to dinner."

Declining the proposals of our wives to see us safely in the train for Liverpool, Peter Dodd and I took a cab to Charing Cross Railway Station and booked to Boulogne-sur-Mer. I at one time had my suspicions that my "better half" was not without a knowledge of our real destination, but her anxiety to see that my portmanteau was properly packed disarmed me; and her last words at parting were, "Don't work too hard. Amuse yourself a little—you want a change." Peter and I were both quite certain that Mrs. Dodd had not the least idea of our plot, and to perfect the scheme we had letters sent to a friend in Liverpool, to be duly posted, acquainting our wives with our arrival, and expressing our sorrow at being separated from them even for such a short space of time.

Dull care we threw to the winds, and no two men could have stepped on French soil more bent on enjoyment. The very air seemed to exhilarate us; it was like quaffing a bumper of champagne. Of course you know Boulogne. Need I describe to you the beauty of the sands, the antiquity of the old town, the village fetes at Pont-des-Briques and Portelle, the quaint costumes and massive ornaments of the fish-women, or the particular class of Englishmen you are bound to meet there in and out of season?

You are, perhaps, as well acquainted with its features as I am. Perhaps you have made love on the ramparts in the moonlight, and had your breakfast at the little restaurant on the jetty. Morning has found you at the English Library in search of the latest gossip; and possibly you have seldom when there missed the two important events of the day—the arrival and departure of the mail boats.

Small as it is, Boulogne circulates more scandal than any town twice its size. It may be an extraordinary marriage, cheating discovered at the card-table, the sudden disappearance of a friend's wife, the elopement of a young lady with a married man, or rumours of a duel about to take place on the Belgian frontier. Something startling is sure to turn up, and natives and foreigners alike enjoy the humours of the carnival quite as much as the people of Paris or Lyons.

The carnival commenced the day following our arrival. The proper thing to do was to hire two fancy costumes, and, duly masked, go to the ball at the theatre in the evening. We selected our dresses with great care. We were, indeed, laughable to look at—I dressed in a Turkish costume, and Peter, capitally got up like a Frenchman of the Paris boulevards. We flattered ourselves, however, that our most intimate friends would not have guessed who we were—feeling safe from detection even from our wives.

After dejeuner on the jetty, I went in search of the man who owed me the hundred pounds. He was not in the least surprised to see me, which seemed strange; in fact, he looked as if he had rather expected me to drop in than otherwise. One thing he was not prepared with, and that was my money. Instead of offering to liquidate the debt to some extent, he, with all the coolness imaginable, proposed that I should lend him another ten pounds. I would not regret it, he said; he might be able to do me a good turn. His audacity made me angry, and I marched out of his office in anything but a pleasant temper. Meeting an acquaintance shortly afterwards, he told me not to expect to realise my hundred, that the man's wife had bolted with her husband's most intimate friend a few days before, and that he, my debtor, was fast drinking himself to ruin and death. Dismissing this miserable business from my mind, Peter and I, picturesquely arrayed, took a voiture to the theatre about eleven o'clock. The fun had not yet become fast and furious, but the signs of the mad revelry to come were visible on all sides.