“Never mind that just now,” I interrupted; “what I want to know is why you wrote the governor of Lorient to expel our circus.” 289
“That’s my own affair,” he snapped; “besides, who said I wrote?”
“Idiot,” I said, “somebody paid you to do it. Who was it?”
The mayor, hunched up in his chair, shut his mouth obstinately.
“Somebody paid you,” I repeated; “you would never have complained of us unless somebody paid you, because our circus is bringing money into your village. Come, my friend, that was easy to guess. Now let me guess again that Buckhurst paid you to complain of us.”
The mayor looked slyly at me out of the corner of his mottled eyes, but he remained mute.
“Very well,” said I; “when the troops from Lorient hear of this revolution in Paradise, they’ll come and chase these communards into the sea. And after that they’ll stand you up against a convenient wall and give you thirty seconds for absolution—”
“Stop!” burst out the mayor, struggling to his feet. “What am I to do? This gentleman, Monsieur Buckhurst, will slay me if I disobey him! Besides,” he added, with cowardly cunning, “they are going to do the same thing in Lorient, too—and everywhere—in Paris, in Bordeaux, in Marseilles—even in Quimperlé! And when all these cities are flying the red flag it won’t be comfortable for cities that fly the tricolor.” He began to bluster. “I’m mayor of Paradise, and I won’t be bullied! You get out of here with your circus and your foolish elephants! I haven’t any gendarmes just now to drive you out, but you had better start, all the same—before night.”
“Oh,” I said, “before night? Why before night?”
“Wait and see then,” he muttered. “Anyway, get out of my house—d’ ye hear?”