Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume II

by M. Y. Halidom

Soon after my departure Sally Snip became the wife of Daniel Nimble, an aspiring apprentice of old Simon's. This was my first love, and, like most first loves, ended miserably. Few men there are I wot who can boast of having loved but once, and of having lived uncrossed in that love to the end of the chapter. But I digress.

No sooner arrived in Paris than I began searching out the names and addresses of the most celebrated men in the hair line of the day with a view of offering my services as assistant. The day after my arrival I passed a large and handsome shop, evidently a first-rate business, with a large printed card in the window. Now, although at that time I had not the remotest knowledge of the French language, and consequently could not possibly understand what was written on the card, yet an indescribable I-don't-know-what, an inexplicable "je-ne-sais-quoi" (perchance a spiritual dig in the ribs from my father), induced me to interpret the words, "A boy wanted." I was as certain as I am of my own existence that the proprietor was in want of an assistant and that my services would be accepted, so I entered the shop, addressed the proprietor in English, which, it is needless to say, was perfectly unintelligible to him. However, by expressive signs, I told him I was an adept, and that he couldn't do better than engage me. He smiled, the bargain was struck, and from that day I commenced my career in a foreign land.

My employer was one Pierre le Chauve, a hair-dresser who had an extensive business in the Rue St. Honorè, and who was especially renowned for the neatness and elegance of his wigs. He also cut hair, manufactured fancy soaps, hair oil, hair dye, perfumery, and the like. He had one daughter, Mademoiselle Pauline, of some eighteen summers, as neat a little grisette as ever trod the Champs Elysées or the Bois de Boulogne on Sundays, and who presided at the counter and sold articles of perfumery to the Parisian exquisites, with whom she chatted with the most charming ease and grace and bewitching naïveté.

Pauline was the thorough type of a French girl. Eyes of dark hazel, set wide apart in her head, nez retrousee, rather wide mouth and exceptional teeth, small hand and foot, jimp waist, and a countenance capable of every possible shade of expression, while her voice, by nature pitched in a high key, rose to shrillest treble when under any excitement.

Besides myself, there was another assistant, one Jacques Millefleurs, a conceited French puppy, who fancied himself irresistible, and used to persecute his employer's daughter with the most marked attentions whenever her father's back was turned, and which she, it must be confessed, did not appear to be entirely indifferent to, although, at the same time, she gave him plainly to understand that she intended to flirt with whomever she liked without asking his permission, and that he had no right whatever to monopolise her. Jacques was of an exceedingly jealous temper, and could ill brook this tone from the object of his affections; this she knew well, and often took a malicious delight in provoking him by putting on her best airs and graces and being doubly fascinating whenever a handsome customer came to the shop. It was then that Jacques would grow pale, and dart vicious side glances from the corners of his eyes; but Pauline took no notice of him whatever, but flirted more and more, as if to aggravate him. After the customer had departed they would have a lovers' quarrel, and then they would make it up again, and so on from day to day.

Now, all this could be of very little interest to me, even if I had understood their conversation, for had I not my own secret grief? Was it to be supposed that I could forget Sally in a day? No; whilst I in silence counted and separated the hairs destined to be woven into the scalp of a wig, or whilst shaving a customer or cutting his hair, my soul was in the green lane with Sally, or behind her at church, or under her window at night, watching for a momentary glimpse of her shadow on the window blind. In fact, whatever happened to be my employment, Sally was ever uppermost in my thoughts, and still continued to be so, even some time after the sad news reached me that she had married Daniel Nimble. This shock at first was terrific, but, gradually subsiding, I resolved at length that, as she had so soon forgotten me, not to think of her any more, which in time I succeeded in doing. From being moody and silent, I now became more talkative, for I had begun to pick up a few phrases in French.

Mademoiselle Pauline encouraged me in my progress, and was pleased to take a great interest in me, much to the disgust of her admirer, Jacques Millefleurs, who began to look upon me as a probable rival. I daily improved in the French language under my fair tutor, and day by day she gained upon me, for she certainly had the most winning manners. The more I talked with her, the less I thought of Sally, till at last she succeeded in completely supplanting her in my heart, and I found myself, before I was well aware of it, head over ears in love with the fascinating grisette.

Here was a to do. Murder will out. Love and a cough are two things one can't hide, as the proverb says.

The odious Jacques must discover my passion ere long, and a quarrel will be inevitable. Not that I feared the likes of him, gentlemen. Don't suppose it for a moment. Why, I'd take half a dozen or so of such fellows one off and another on, and thrash the whole lot of them as easy as a game of ninepins. Well, but to proceed, gentlemen. What I foresaw soon happened. One day while taking my French lesson under Mademoiselle Pauline, and we were chatting away merrily enough without taking any notice of Jacques, who was arranging pots of bears' grease on the shelves in the background, our heads drew very close together, and we were looking very fondly into each other's eyes and whispering rather low.

Now, I knew that there was no engagement between her and Jacques, therefore I had every right to pay her just the same attention that he did, and I intended to let him know it. Well, my head might have touched hers, or my locks may have intermingled with hers as we pored over the French grammar together. However this may have been, something or other seems to have exasperated my rival, for I heard him mutter to himself something like Cochon d'un Anglais. I was getting on in my French now and understood the words, so turning round, I said,