We chuckled as we blessed him. No doubt we were often imposed upon, and Monsieur had an eye like a needle for the impostor.
In process of manufacture, marks of ownership sometimes became erased, and then there was woe in Israel.
"That my caisse? Mais je vous assure Mademoiselle the caisse that I brought was large, grande comme ça"—a gesture suggested a mausoleum. "Yes, and I wrote my name on it with the pencil of Monsieur, there, dans le couloir. He saw me write it, Vannier-Lefeuvre. Monsieur will testify."
We gazed at Monsieur. "Vannier-Lefeuvre? Bon. Regardez la liste. C'est le numero twenty-two."
"But there is NO number twenty-two, Monsieur."
"Eh bien, il faut chercher."
This to a demented philanthropist who had already wasted a good hour in the search. (The hall was piled ceiling high with the wretched cases, you know.) Madame Vannier-Lefeuvre lifted up a strident voice and sang in minor key a dirge in memory of the lost treasure. Its size, its beauty, its strength, the twenty-five sous she had paid for it at the épicerie.... No, it was not that, nor that. We dragged out the best, even some special treasures bigger and better than anything she could have produced. All in vain. "Monsieur." We appealed to Cæsar.
Boom, bang, boom. With his mouth full of nails, humming a stifled song, Cæsar drove a huge nail into the case of Madame Poiret-Blanc. Five minutes later Madame Lefeuvre-Vannier—"or Vannier-Lefeuvre ça ne fait rien," marched off with our finest caisse on her brouette, woe on her wily old face and devilish glee in her heart. And we, turning to pulverise Monsieur, whose business it was to mark every case in order to prevent confusion, found ourselves dumb. We might rage in the Common-room, but in the wood-shed we were as lambs that baa'ed.
And we forgave him all his sins the day he, with a look of ineffable dignity just sufficiently tinged with contempt, brushed aside a huge gendarme at the station. Some one was going away, and Monsieur had wheeled her luggage over on the brouette.
"It is forbidden to go on the platform." Thus the arm of military law, an Avis threatening pains and penalties hanging over his head.