So I started for Algiers. The next morning, before the sailing of the Marechal Bugeaud, one of the quaint churns styled a steamship by the vanity of the French Company which undertakes to convey respectable folk across the Mediterranean, I ate my bouillabaisse below an awning on the sunny quay at Marseilles. The torrential rains had ceased. I advised Rogers to take equivalent sustenance, as no lunch is provided on day of sailing by the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. I caught sight of him in a dark corner of the restaurant—he is too British to eat in the open air on the terrace, or perhaps too modest to have his meal in my presence—struggling grimly with a beefsteak, and, as he is a teetotaller, with an unimaginable, horrific liquid which he poured out from a vessel vaguely resembling a teapot.
My meal over, and having nearly an hour to spare, I paid my bill, rose and turned the corner of the quay into the Cannebiere, thinking to have my coffee at one of the cafes in that thoroughfare of which the natives say that, if Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles. I suppose for the Marseillais there is a magic in the sonorous name; for, after all, it is but a commonplace street of shops running from the quays into the heart of the town. It is also deformed by tramcars. I strolled leisurely up, thinking of the many swans that were geese, and Paradises that were building-plots, and heroes that were dummies, and solidities that were shadows, in short, enjoying a gentle post-prandial mood, when my eyes suddenly fell on a scene which brought me down from such realities to the realm of the fantastic. There, a few yards in front of me, at the outer edge of the terrace of a cafe, clad in his eternal silk hat, frock coat, and yellow gloves, sat Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos in earnest conversation with a seedy stranger of repellent mien. The latter was clean-shaven and had a broken nose, and wore a little round, soft felt hat. The dwarf was facing me. As he caught sight of me a smile of welcome overspread his Napoleonic features. He rose, awaited my approach, and, bareheaded, made his usual sweeping bow, which he concluded by resting his silk hat on the pit of his stomach. I lifted my hat politely and would have passed on, but he stood in my path. I extended my hand. He took it after the manner of a provincial mayor receiving royalty.
“Couvrez-vous, Monsieur, je vous en prie,” said I.
He covered his head. “Monsieur,” said he, “I beseech you to be seated, and do me the honour of joining me in the coffee and excellent cognac of this establishment.”
“Willingly,” said I, mindful of Lola's tale of the long knife which he carried concealed about his person.
“Permit me to present my friend Monsieur Achille Saupiquet—Monsieur de Gex, a great English statesman and a friend of that gnadigsten Engel, Madame Lola Brandt.”
Monsieur Saupiquet and I saluted each other formally. I took a seat. Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos moved a bundle of papers tied up with pink ribbon from in front of me, and ordered coffee and cognac.
“Monsieur Saupiquet also knows Madame Brandt,” he explained.
“Bien sur,” said Monsieur Saupiquet. “She owes me fifteen sous.”
Papadopoulos turned on his sharply. “Will you be silent!”