LESLIE GOES “HOME.”
While Alan and Winnie, protected by their temporary armistice, were hurrying toward the modest abode of Mrs. French, each intent upon solving as soon as possible the riddle of Leslie’s flight, the Francoises were holding high council in the kitchen of their most recent habitation.
In all the lists of professional criminals, there were not two who had been, from their very earliest adventure, more successful in evading the police than Papa and Mamma Francoise.
Papa, although in the face of actual, present danger he was the greater coward of the two, possessed a rare talent for scheming, and laying cunning plans to baffle the too curious. And Mamma’s executive ability was very strong, of its kind. In the face of danger, Mamma’s furious temper and animal courage stood them in good stead. When a new scheme was on foot, Papa took the lead.
As for Franz, he, as we have seen, had not been so successful in evading the representatives of law and order. And he had returned, having escaped from durance vile, bringing with him a strangely developed stock of his Mother’s fierceness and his Father’s cunning.
It was a part of Papa’s policy to be, at all times, provided with a “retreat.” Not content with an abiding-place for the present, the pair had always, somewhere within an easy distance from their present abode, a second haven, fitted with the commonest necessaries of life, but seldom anything more, and always ready to receive them. Hence, in fleeing from the scene of the Siebel affray, they had gone to the attic which stood ready to shelter them, where they had been traced by Vernet, and followed by Franz. And on the night when they had left Van Vernet to a fiery death, they had flown straight to another ready refuge.
This time it was a cottage, old and shabby, but in a respectable quarter on the remotest outskirts of the city. This cottage, like the B—street tenement, stood quite isolated from its neighbors, for it was one of Papa’s fine points to choose ever a solitary location, or else lose himself in a locality where humanity swarmed thickest, and where each was too eager in his own struggle for existence to be anxious or curious about the affairs of his neighbors.
This cottage, then, was shabby enough, but not so shabby as their former dwelling, either within or without. Neither did Papa and Mamma present quite so uncanny an appearance as before. They were somewhat cleaner, a trifle better clad, and somewhat changed in their general aspect, for here they were presuming themselves to be “poor but honest” working people, like their neighbors.
In this pretence they were ably supported by Franz, when he was sober. And drunkenness not being strictly confined to the wealthier classes, he cast no discredit upon the honesty of his parents by being frequently drunk.
Papa and Mamma were regaling themselves with a late supper, consisting principally of beer and “Dutch bread,” and as usual, when tête-à-tête, they were engaged in a lively discussion.