“Ah, Monsieur! a poor name; he is called like me, Gustav Callot.”
The poor valet was thunderstruck by the sensation which his simple words caused. Surely the English gentlemen and ladies are beautiful listeners; no one ever paid him so much attention in his own country.
The American mayor took up the examination.
“I reckon,” drawled he, “that young man did not go by the name of Armstrong when you knew him.”
“Ah, no! He has many names, my good, kind friend. It was Monsieur Rogers when we knew his finest. Ah! he act the comedy beautiful! Then when to came to cherish the pauvre père in Paris, and mourn with him the death of la petite Françoise, he call himself by our poor name. Ah! gentlemen, he was good to us. All he save at ‘L’Hôtel Soult’ he share with us—and après from the sea he even send us pay.”
“What was his ship, do you remember?”
“Shall I forget? He told us it had but one eye, and called itself ‘Cyclops’ Ah! mes amis,” continued Gustav, delighted with his audience and amazed at his own oratorical gifts, “he was much changed when I saw him next. ’Tis six, seven, eight years since. The beard is all shorn, the curl is cut off, the eye looks through a glass, and the laugh—hélas! gentlemen, the gay laugh of the boy Rogers is turned to the knit brow of the great man Armstrong.”
The company had had enough of elocution for one evening, and dismissed the orator with flattering marks of consideration.
The doctor and the vicar rose to go. Close friends of the family as they were, even they were superfluous at a time like this.
But the American mayor remained.