“Listen, will you!” cried the man. “Some disturbance was caused by a gamin who broke from the crowd and attacked a soldier. But the miserable was seized and carried off, screaming. Two gold pieces of 20 francs each fell from some hiding-place in his ragged clothes and were taken charge of by the police.”
The man paused and gloated over the column. “Here,” he cried, “Listen—‘Even under the knife the condemned—’”
Gethryn rose roughly and, crowding past the man, descended the steps and, entering the car below, sat down there.
“Butor!” roared the butcher. “Cochon! He trod on my foot!”
“He is an English pig!” sneered the woman, reaching for the newspaper. “Let me read it now,” she whined.
“Hands off,” growled the man, “I’ll read you what I think good.”
“But it’s my paper.”
“It’s mine now—shut up.”
The first thing Gethryn did on reaching home was to write a note to his friend, the Prefect of the Seine, telling him how the child of Rigaud came by the gold pieces. Then he had a quiet smoke, and then he went out and lunched at the Café des Écoles, frugally, on a sandwich and a glass of beer. After that he returned to his studio and sat down to his desk again. He opened a small memorandum book and examined some columns of figures. They were rather straggling, not very well kept, but they served to convince him that his accounts were forty francs behind, and he would have to economize a little for the next week or two. After this, he sat and thought steadily. Finally he took a sheet of his best cream laid note paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and began to write. The note was short, but it took him a long while to compose it, and when it was sealed and directed to “Miss Ruth Deane, Lung’ Arno Guicciardini, Florence, Italy,” he sat holding it in his hand as if he did not know what to do with it.
Two o’clock struck. He started up, and quickly rolling up the shades from the glass roof and pulling out his easel, began to squeeze tube after tube of color upon his palette. The parrot came down and tiptoed about the floor, peering into color boxes, pastel cases, and pots of black soap, with all the curiosity of a regulation studio bore. Steps echoed on the tiles outside.