It was from Edgar that William got his incomparable method of polishing his hats. Once, at the Auteuil races, Edgar was approached by the young marquis de Plérin.
"Say, my lad," begged the marquis, "how do you get your hats?"
"My hats, Monsieur the Marquis?" responded Edgar, highly flattered, for the young Plérin, a robber at the races and a trickster at the gaming-table, was then one of the most famous personalities of Parisian society. "It is very simple; only it is like picking the winner,—you must know how. Well, this is the trick. Every morning I make my valet de chambre run for a quarter of an hour. He sweats, of course. And the sweat contains oil. Then, with a very fine silk handkerchief, he wipes the sweat from his brow, and rubs my hats with it. A stroke or two with the iron finishes the job. But it takes a clean and healthy man, preferably a man with nut-brown complexion,—for some blondes smell strong, and all sweats are not suitable. Last year I gave the receipt to the prince of Wales."
And, as the young marquis de Plérin thanked Edgar and slyly shook his hand, the latter added, confidently:
"Take Baladeur at seven to one. He is to be the winner, Monsieur the Marquis."
It is really funny when I think of it, but I finally came to feel flattered myself that William had such a relation. To me, too, Edgar was something admirable and inaccessible, like the emperor of Germany, Victor Hugo, or Paul Bourget. That is why I think it advisable to fix in these pages, from all that William told me, the portrait of this more than illustrious, this historic personage.
Edgar was born in London, in a frightful den, between two hiccups of whiskey. As a boy he was a vagabond, a beggar, a thief, and a jail-bird. Later, having the requisite physical deformities and the most crapulous instincts, he was pitched on for a groom. From ante-room to stable, rubbing against all the trickery, all the rapacity, all the vice prevailing among the servants of a grand establishment, he became a "lad" in the Eaton stud. And he strutted about in a Scotch cap, a yellow and black striped waistcoat, and light pantaloons, loose at the thighs, tight at the calves, and wrinkled at the knees in the form of a screw. When scarcely an adult, he looked like a little old man, with frail limbs and furrowed face, red at the cheek-bones, yellow at the temples, with worn-out and grimacing mouth, with thin hair brushed over his ears in the form of a greasy spiral. In a society which the odor of horse-dung causes to swoon with delight Edgar was already a personage less anonymous than a workingman or a peasant,—almost a gentleman.
At Eaton he learned his trade thoroughly. He knows how to groom a stylish horse, how to take care of it when it is sick, and what detailed and complicated toilets are most suitable to the color of its coat. He knows the secret of the intimate washings, the refined polishings, the expert pedicurings, and the ingenious processes of make-up, by which the beasts of the race-track, like the beasts of love, are set out and beautified. In the bar-rooms he knew important jockeys, celebrated trainers, and the big-bellied baronets, and blackleg dukes and bums, who are the cream of this muck-heap and the flower of this horse-dung. Edgar would have liked to become a jockey, for he soon saw all the tricks that could be played and the money that could be made. But he had grown too large. Though his legs had remained thin and bowed, he had acquired something of a corporation. He was too heavy. So, being unable to don the jockey's coat, he decided to wear the coachman's livery.
To-day Edgar is forty-three years old. He is one of the five or six English, Italian, and French stud-grooms of whom they talk in elegant society with wondering admiration. His name triumphs in the sporting papers, and even in the paragraphs of the society and literary journals. The baron de Borgsheim, his present master, is proud of him,—more proud of him than he would be of a financial operation that had ruined a hundred thousand janitors. Swelling up with an air of definitive superiority, he says: "My stud-groom!" as a collector of pictures would say: "My Rubens!" And, in fact, the lucky baron has reason to be proud, for, since he came into possession of Edgar, he has made great strides in fame and respectability. Edgar has gained for him that admission to uncompromising salons which he so long coveted. Through Edgar he has at last overcome the resistance of society to his race. At the club they talk of the famous "victory of the baron over England." The English have taken Egypt from us, but the baron has taken Edgar from the English, and that restores the equilibrium. If he had conquered the Indies, he would not have been more loudly acclaimed. This admiration is accompanied, however, by deep jealousy. They would like to get Edgar away from him, and so there goes on around Edgar all sorts of intrigues, and corrupting conspiracies, and flirtations, like those that go on around a beautiful woman. As for the newspapers, they, in their respectful enthusiasm, have reached a point where they are no longer able to tell exactly which of the two, Edgar or the baron, is the admirable stud-groom, and which the admirable financier. They confound the two in the mutual glories of one and the same apotheosis.