The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
are not like the rest. Besides I am not going to deny that I was at the
Tuileries.”
“And you did some work for the King, for which he gave you twenty five
louis,” went on the other.
“Indeed, I had twenty-five shiners in my pouch,” said Gamain.
“Then, you have got them now, my friend.”
The smith quickly plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled it out
full of gold mixed with small change in silver and bronze.
“To think that I had forgot it! twenty-five is a good bit, too--and it
is right to the ‘broken’ louis--one does not pick up such a lot under
the horse’s foot. Thank God the account is correct.” And he breathed
more freely.
“My dear Master Gamain, I told you I found you on the King’s highway,
not twenty paces from a heavy wagon which would have cut you in twain. I
shouted for the carrier to pull up; I called a passing cab; I unhooked
one of the lamps and as I looked at you by its light, I caught sight of
a gold piece on the ground; as they were near your pocket, I judged that
you had dropped them. I put my finger in the pocket and as there were a
score of their brothers in bed there I guessed that these were of the
same brood. Thereupon the hack driver shook his head. ‘I ain’t going to
take this fare,’ said he: ‘he is too rich for his dress. Twenty louis in
gold in a cotton waistcoat suggests that the gallows will be his end.’
‘What,’ says I, ‘do you take him for a thief?’ The word struck you, for
you says. ‘Thief? you are another!’ says you. ‘So you must be a prig,’
returned the coachman, ‘or how would the likes of you have a pocket
gold-lined, say?’
“'I have money because my pupil the King of France gave it me,’ said
you. By these words I thought I recognized you, and clasping the lamp to
your nose, I cried: ‘Bless us and save us: all is clear; this is Master
Gamain, master locksmith at Versailles. He has been working in the royal
forge and the King has given him twenty-five mint-drops for his trouble.
All right: I will answer for him.’ From the moment that I answered for
you, the driver raised no objections. I replaced the coins in your
pocket; we laid you snugly in the hack; and we set you down in this
retreat so that you have nothing to complain of except that your
‘prentice left you in the lurch.”
“Did I speak of my ’prentice? that he left me in the lurch?” questioned
Gamain, more and more astonished.
“Why, hang it all, are you going back on what you said? Did you not
growl that it was all the fault of--of--dash me if I can remember the
name you used.”
“Louis Lecomte?”
“I guess that was it. Did you not say: ‘Louis Lecomte is in fault! for
he promised to see me safe home and at the last moment he dropped me
like a hot roll?'”
“I daresay I did so, for it is the blessed truth.”
“Then, why do you deny the truth? let me tell you, that with another
than me, such chatter would be dangerous?”
“But with you, one is safe, eh? with a regular friend,” said the smith,
coaxingly.
“Lord, you have lots of trust in your friend. You say yes and you say
no; you wiggle and waver so that none knows how to have you. It is like
your fable t’other day about the secret door that a nobleman had you fit
on the strict quiet.”
“Then you will not believe this tale either, for it also hangs upon a
door.”
“In the palace?”
“In the King’s palace. Only instead of its being a clothes-press door,
or rather that of a safe in the wall, it is a cupboard door this time.”
“Are you gaming me that the King, while he certainly dabbles in
locksmithery, sent for you to do up a door?”
“He did, though. Poor fellow, he thought he was smart enough to get on
without me, and began to make a lock. ‘What good is Gamain anyhow?’ but
he got mixed up with the works in the lock and had to fall back on
Gamain after all.”
“So you were hunted up by one of his trusty flunkeys, Hue, or Durey or
Weber, eh?”
“That is just where you make a mistake. He has taken a green hand on to
help him, who is as much of an amateur as himself; a young sprig who
popped in upon me one morning at Versailles, and says he: ‘Look here,
Daddy Gamain, the King and me tried to make a lock, and by Jove we have
made a muddle of it. The old thing won’t work! ‘What have I to do with
it?’ I wanted to know. ‘You are wanted to set it right,’ says he, and as
I said that it was a plant and he did not come from the King, he slaps
some gold on the bench and says: ‘Is not this earnest enough? here are
twenty-five louis which the King sends you to remove any doubts.’ He
gave me them, too.”
“So these are what you are sporting round with you?”
“No: these are another lot. These were for traveling expenses and a sort
of a payment on account!”
“Fifty louis for filing up an old lock? there is a snake in the grass,
Friend Gamain.”
“Just what I said to myself: particularly as the ’prentice does not seem
a regular craftsman but dodged my question about work and where you stop
when you are on tramp in France, as well as who is Mother Marianne.”
“But you are not the man to be taken in when you see a boy at work.”
“I do not say so much as that. The lad plied the file and the chisel
handily. I have seen him cut a rod of iron through velean at a blow, and
put a hole in a band with a rattail file as if using a gimlet on a lath.
But there is more theory than practice about his style: he no sooner
finishes the job than he washed his hands, and what hands? so white that
never did a locksmith boast the like. You don’t see me scrubbing my
hands till they are white!”
With pride he showed his grubby, black and callous hands which indeed
seemed to defy all the cosmetics and skin-bleaches in the world.
“But in short what did you do when you got to the King’s?” asked the
other, bringing the man to the point most interesting to him.
“It looked as though we were expected: in the forge the King showed me a
lock commenced not badly, but he had got in a corner. It was one with
three wards, d’ye see, which few locksmiths can grapple with and royal
ones least of all. I looked at it and saw where the key caught. ‘All
right,’ I says; ‘let me alone with it for an hour and it will work as if
greased,’ ‘Go ahead,’ said the King, ‘consider yourself at home; call
for anything you like while we get the cupboard ready on which the lock
goes.’ On which he went out with the imp of a ’prentice.”
“By the main stairs?” queried the gunsmith carelessly.
“No: by a secret one leading to his study. When I got through, I had
done something, too; I said to myself: ‘It is all bosh about this here
cupboard; they are laying their heads together for some mischief.’ So I
crept down softly and opening the study door, I got a glimpse of what
they were up to.”
“And what were they up to?” inquired the gunsmith.
“Well, I did not catch them in the act, for they must have heard me
coming, for I have not the light step of a dancer. They pretended to be
up and coming to me, and the King said, ‘Oh this is you, and you have
finished? Come along for I have something else for you to do.’ So he
hurried me through the study, but not so fast that I did not spy spread
out on a table a big map which I believe to be France on account of a
lily-flower printed in one corner. From the midst three rows of pins ran
out to the edges like files of soldiers, for they were stuck in at
regular spaces.”
“Really, you are wonderfully sharp,” said the stranger in affected
admiration: “So you believe that instead of bothering about their
cupboard, they were busy with this map?”
“I am sure of it: the pins had wax heads of different colors, black,
blue and red; and the King was using a red one to pick his teeth with,
without thinking what he was about.”
“Gamain, if I discovered some new kind of gun, hang me if I would let
you come into my workshop, even to pass through it, or I would bandage
your eyes as on the day you were taken to the great nobleman’s house
though you did perceive that the house had ten steps to the stoop and
that it fronted on the main avenue.”
“Wait a bit,” said the smith, enchanted at the eulogies; “you have not
heard all--there is really a safe in the wall.”
“What wall?”
“Of the inner corridor running from the royal alcove to the young
prince’s room.”
“What you say is very queer. And was this safe open?”
“Is it likely? I squinted round in all ways but it was no use my asking
myself: ‘Where on earth is this secret press?’ Then the King gave me a
look and says he: ‘Gamain, I have always had trust in you. So I would
not let anybody but you know the secret.’ While speaking, the King
lifted a panel, while the boy held a light, for the corridor has no
windows, and showed me a two foot round hole. Seeing my astonishment, he
winked to our companion and said: ‘Do you see that hole, my friend; I
made it to keep money in; this young fellow helped me during the four or
five days he has been staying in the palace. Now we want the lock put on
the panel so that it will be hidden and not interfere with its sliding.
Do you want an aid, in which case this young man will help you? or can
you do without? if so I will set him to work elsewhere. ‘Tut,’ I said,
‘you know that I like to go alone when I am the job. It is four hour’s
work for a good hand but I am a master and will be through in three. Go
and attend to your work, young fellow; and your Majesty may stick to
his. And in three hours fetch along anything you want kept in this
meat-safe.’
“We may believe the young chap had other fish to fry, for I saw nothing
more of him: but when the time was up, the King came back. ‘U. P., it is
all UP!’ said I, and I made him see that the door slid without the lock
being in the way as neat as the Automatons of Vaucanson. ‘Good,’ said
he; ‘just help me count the cash I am going to bestow here.’ A valet
brought four fine bags of coin and we reckoned a million a-piece; there
were twenty-and-five over. ‘There you are, Gamain,’ said the King, ‘Take
them for your trouble!’ as though it was not disgraceful to give an old
mate a beggarly twenty-five--a man with five children, and he has been
handling two millions! What do you think of that?”
“The truth is that this is mean,” said the other, shrugging his
shoulders.
“Wait, this is not all. I put the coin in my pocket and said. ‘I thank
your Majesty: but Lord love you, I have not had sup or bite since
morning and I am ready to burst!’ I had barely finished before the Queen
walked in by a secret door, so that she was on the top of us without
saying Lookout! She had a platter in her hand with a cake and a glass on
it.
“'My dear Gamain, as you are hungry and thirsty, try our wine and cake!’
‘Sorry to trouble you, Royal Madam,’ I said, but just think of a drop
like that and a mouthful of wine like that fancy cake for a man. What do
you expect sensible in that line from a Queen, though? it is plain that
such folks are never really hungry and athirst. A glass of wine--oh,
dear!”
“So you refused it?”
“It would have been better if I had; but I drank. As for the cake I
rolled it up in my handkerchief, saying ‘What is no good for the father
will do for the children.’ Then I thanked his Majesty, as though it were
worth thanks, and I started off, saying that they will not catch me in
their old palace in a hurry again.”
“And why do you say you had better have refused the drink?”
“Because they had put poison in it! Hardly had I got over the bridge
before I was seized by thirst, such a raging thirst that between the
liquor saloons and the river, I balanced myself. I could tell it was
queer stuff they gave me for the more I took the thirstier I was. This
kept on with my trying to correct that dose till I lost my senses. They
may be easy on this score: if ever they come to me for a good character,