'You're going, and you've not told me——'
'Not to-night. Search the side-pocket of that coat, and you'll find fifty francs in it. Au revoir.'
And this strangest of strange characters jumped into the hackney-carriage and disappeared by a street leading to the Panthéon, leaving O'Hara in a brown study in the brown shadows of the Rue de la Vieille Estrapade.
He was roused from his reverie by an affectionate whine, now become familiar. It was the dog, forgotten when they entered the house, and who had been lying patiently by its threshold. He returned the creature's welcome with a caress, and determined, as he had fallen in with him so curiously, and as he had shown so lively a sense of gratitude and fidelity—much more than humanity usually permits itself to be betrayed into—to take Pat back to his lodgings and adopt him. He did not fear the Caudine forks now, for he had the grand passport, the jingling gold, in his pocket, and the old pride returned to his port and the jovial defiance to his eye. Gaily he strode down by the Rue Soufflot to the Boulevard St. Michel—we believe he might even have been heard whistling 'Rory O'More,' to the huge delight of the dog, who capered at his heels—until he reached the café of la Jeune France, where he came to a dead stop on the pavement, as if debating something in his mind.
'No,' he said at last, 'I shan't go in; I'll see, for once, if I can keep a good resolution when I have the means of breaking it. Egad, this is a day of adventures for me. If half these things were written down in a story, the world would say the author was a lunatic, or imagined he was writing for fools!'
Not the least grateful surprise awaited him at his hotel in the Rue du Four when he re-entered. It was a letter of credit for twenty pounds from a debtor in Ireland, which the concierge, who knew the handwriting, smilingly slipped into his fingers.
CHAPTER V.
NAPOLEONIC IDEAS.
FEW who saw the miserable despairing lodger in the Hôtel de Suez, who looked out sadly from his thin blankets on the prospect of hope vanishing with the last vapour of his pipe, would have recognised the same entity a week afterwards in the gay, buoyant, flushed youth seated, choice Havana idly turned between his lips, deep in an armchair, soft dressing-gown falling around in showy folds, and his feet cased in embroidered slippers, resting, American-wise, on the marble top of a stove wherein the live logs cheerily hissed and blazed. The man was the same; that is the form, the cubic extent of flesh and blood and bone—but money had effected the grand transformation; money had made out of the wretch, fearful of the shadow of a sharp-tongued concierge, a very cavalier in lightsome spirit, airy courage, and happy way of looking at life in general. Twenty pounds had done this; gold had done it—the true philosopher's stone, whereat we be tempted to moralize much, to ask was not this human being as much entitled to human respect and more to human sympathy when he was forlorn? and all that sort of thing, and to put on our grave censor's cap and reproach the world. But we resist the temptation. For, indeed, is not money truly great? is it not the outward and visible representation of intrinsic worth always, and is not the man who has made it by trafficking in cloth or herrings, or some other articles for the good of society over a counter, infinitely to be preferred to him who thinks, and feels, and dreams much, and does not make money? Is he not of vastly more value to his kind than the mere scholar or martyr, the doer of high deeds or utterer of high thoughts? Is not the alderman—the Lord Mayor, perhaps, of next year—riding in his gilt chariot, more worthy much than Samuel Johnson in the attic vegetating on fourpence-halfpenny a day? For what is the worth of anything but its money value in the market?
But let us cease this teasing worn-out cynicism, which all will applaud in theory, and in practice all will repudiate, and return to our friend, O'Hara.
He sat, gay as he looked, surrounded by lights and such flowers as the early season furnished; a burning pastille poured out a thick unctuous stream of perfume; fruits were on the table by his elbow, and in companionship beside them slender bottles of sparkling wine. He had a sensuous appreciation of the beautiful, had our friend; but not a selfish, for he did not sit alone. At his feet, curled like a hedgehog on a luxurious mat, snored Pat, the foundling dog, a half-eaten bone held between his paws. Pat had evidently fallen upon pleasant lines; he was plump and sleek as an incipient alderman after his seven days' good treatment, and now, as aspirants to the dignity of the fur collar and the rapture of turtle-soup are wont, he was enjoying the snooze of satisfaction after the repast of repletion. Then, again, another of our acquaintances was present. Stiff and stately, as a bare old oak in winter, on the opposite side of the fire, sat Captain Chauvin—white-bearded, the chocolate-coloured ribbon on his breast, his stick held bolt upright between his legs—a figure of dignity and firmness in the frivolous air of this bachelor-chamber in gala; yet, somehow, he did not look out of place. There was sweetness in the old man's face, and benevolence and truth, which is beautiful everywhere.