THE TWENTY-FIVE FRANC PIECE.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8727, 24 February 1894, Page 2

THE TWENTY-FIVE FRANC PIECE.

» By Francois Copjpeu. Whea Lucien de Hera saw his last piece of money raked in by the banker, and gob up from the roulette Cubic: where ho had just lost the remainder of his little fortuna which he had brought there for his final effuit, he was seized with verripco, and narrowly escaped filling to tho floor. With a weary braiu aud crerabliug legs, he threw himself upon a long leather sofa which surrounded the gambling table.

For several minutes he looked vaguely about these private gamblliig room* whore he hud'spoiled the must beautiful years of his youth, recogui*<:d ibe worn features of the different gamblers*, cruelly lighted by the great shaded lamps, heard tho soft clinking'of the gold upon the Rreen table, felt tha-C he was ruined, lost, and remembered that he had at home, in the drawer of the commode, a pair of pistols which had once been the property of his father. General Hern, when he wus a capcain; then only, worn out with feaijme, Uβ fell iuto a profound sleep. Wheu he avvukened, his mouth dry and parched, he ascercaiaud by glancing afc the clock that* he had scnrcely slept a quarter of an hour, and he felt au overwhelming dusire to breatn the fresh, cool, night air. Thehandsof the clock pointed to a quarter of an hour of midnight. Au he arose and stretched himself he remembered that it was Christmas eve, and with an ironical play of his- memory, lie saw himself a little child and puttiug, before he went to bed, his shoes in front of the fireplace. At this moment, old Drouski, a pillar of the place, a typical Pole, wearing a rusty, long coat, trimmed with braid and large ornaments, approached Lucien and muttered these words through his grey beard :

" Lend mc five francs, sir. Ie is now two days since I have not left the club, and during these two days I have not seen' seventeen' win. You may laugh at mc, if you wish, but I will cut oil my right haud it hoou, at midnight, this number is not the one.

Lucien de Hern shrugged his shoulders, Hβ had nob even enough in hie pockets to «ive to that beggar, whom the frequenters) of the place calledi " less cents sous dv Polonais." He passed into the anteroom, took his hat and coat and went down the staircase with a feverish agility. Since four o'clock, when Lucien went into the club, the snow had been falliug steadily and the street—a narrow one in the centre of Paris, with high houses on either side—was white with snow. In the calm, black-blue sky the cold stars scintillated. .-■■■■■ -

The ruined gambler shivered in his furs and began to walk rapidly, turning over always in bis mind • those hopeless thoughtß and dreaming more than ever of the box of pistols which awaited him in the drawer of his commode; but after having, taken several steps, he stopped suddenly before a heart-rending spectacle. Upon a stone bench, placed according to an old custom near the large door of a private'house, a little girl scarcely six or seven years old, dressed in a ragged black frock, was sitting in the snow. She had fallen asleep there despite the cruel cola, in a pitiful attitude of fatigue and dejection, and her poor little head and tiny shoulder bad dropped into a corner of the wall and were resting upon the icy stone. One of the old wooden shoes with which the child was shod had fallen from the the foot, which was hanging down, and lay diearily before her. Mechanically Lucien da Hern put his band to hie vest pocket,but he remembered chat a moment before he did not find even a franc, and that he could not give a fee to the club waiter; nevertheless, pushed by an instinctive sentiment of pity, he approached the little girl, and he started, perhaps; to rahe her In his arms and to give her a place of shelter for the night, when he saw something glisten In the shoe Which had fallen from her foot. He bent over it; ie was a twenty-flve-franc piece. '■ ■' 7i7" ■■ .■■■ ■

A charitable person—a woman, no doubt; —had passed that way, bad seen on that Christmas eve that shoe that had fallen in front of the sleeping child, and recalling the touching Itigand, she had carefully placed there a great gilt, so that a little abandoned child could believe yet in Sanca Claus, aud should, retain, in spite of her unhappiiiesß and misery, some confidence and some hope In the goodness of Providence. .--...■; . .:.■■.•.•■■■. ■: ■ '.; ; Twenty-five francs I There was in it several days rest and wealth for the beggar, and tjucien was upon the point of awakeuing her to tell her of it, when,he heard near his fear, like an hallaclnetlon, a voice—the voice of the Pole with hie thick and drawling accent—that murmured low thene words :— " It is now two days that I have not left the club, and daring these two days I have not seen ' seventeen' win. I will cut off my right baud if soon, at midnight, this number is not the one." . Then this youtjg man. twenty-three years old, who was descended from a race of honourable people, who bore a superb military name, was* seized with ii horrible thought; he was possessed with a mad, hysterical, momtrou* desire; with one look he assured himself that he was really alone in that deserted street, and bending his knee and punning his hand tremblingly into the fallen shoe, he stole the twenty-flve-f rave oiece. Then, running with all hit etrantrth, he returned to the gambling uoiifee, climbed the staircases with a few strides, pushed open with his fist the padded door of the cursed room, and reached,it just as the clock was striking twelve, placed noon the green cloth the gold piece and cr&d— " I stake it all on * seventeen !*** Number seventeen was (be winning number. With a tarn of the" band Lucian placed hi« doubled fund* on " red." . . Rsd was the winning colour. . Ha tried all of his money again on the same colour. ■.; ; Bed came the second ttme. Hβ doubled hU pcecediug stake* twice, three times, altyw¥ with the same luck, fie had now him a ctirp of gold and banknote*,'atfd he scattered them over the table fraetfcallv. All the cdinbiiVailons brought him eUcceas. It wasu chance never beard of before. Something' supernatural. One would have eai ? l that the little ivory ball jumping into tbo pigeon, holes of the roulette table was'fascinated and magnetised by the gambler and obeyed him. Hβ had recovered In a ecbfeiif piay«t the few minerable note« of a thousand francs, hia last resource, which he had lost at the beginning of the evening. At present covering with several hundred franca at a time, and served always by his fantastic lack, he was in a fair Way to regain all, and more than bis iamlly fortune which he had in so few years squandered. In bis haute and desire to play he had j not taken off his overcoat; already he had ' filled the great pockWa with roll* of notes and gold pieces; and not knowing where to heap up bis geine, iie thrust paper and gold into the pockets of hie Inside coati hia vest and trousers. pockets, iiia.ciaar case, his handkerchief, every place that could nerve as a receptacle. And be played ! always, and he gained always, like a mad- ' man, like a drunken tnan I and he threw his handfuls of gold apon the table at

SKiu ' WUh * :KaatttW °* and Only there was something burning'in his breast tike a red-hot iron, amf h« thought cotjHtHntly of the UttlVbenK fr -in whom he had stolon. JC Sg*r She is still In tho■ ««ait»o place ! She must bo there I>m.u-iUately. y C3 , when Jffi' clPck strikes ono i swear tn myself thair will ger. wvH.y from this pl a , e . i will tsU her, iv my arm*.. I will take her home with mc : she *Imll «l ee p in mr'SS to-night; I will bring her up and /wfn sottle a largo amount on nor; I VHU i "' her us my daughter, and I will take car* of her always,, always 1 v " 111. But the clock struck one, and a Quarts pant and halfpaet, and a quarter to two and Lucien was still seated at that infernal At last;, one minute before two, the heml of. the house gat »p abruptly, and salt) Tin a loud voice, "Tho biinic'ls broken, natl* men ; enough for to-duy." w ith one bound L\u;len was on hla foet ond, pushing aside recklessly the curious who surrounded and regarded him v»Hh an envious admiration, he went ou« quickly, rushing down tho stairs and runnitiß to tho stoae bench there. Prom *. di9t ?, nce ,, by , U « uC of a «'« jet, he could see the little girl. " Thank God !" ho cried, v she ia still there."

He approached her and seized her ttnr hand. .

" Oh, how coldehe is. Poor little thine f He took her in his arms, and rained her to cany her. The head of the child fell bnck without awakening her. " How one sleeps at her at*e'." He pressed her a£ain«t his breast to warm her, and. seized with n vague in-< quietude, he tiled, iv order to draw her from thie heavy Bleep, to ki*s her on the eyelids, as one does to awaken gently a loved one. And then he perceived with horror that the eyelids of the child wero half-open, and that the eyeballs were glassy, set, aud sightless. His brain whirled with a horrible auapiciou ; ho put his mouth close to that of ihe little girl; not a breath came from it. During the time Lucien hid gained a fortune with the money stolen from the little beggar, the poor child without * home had died, died from exposure to thi cold. fvT Feeling in hia throat a horrible choking ■sensation, Lucien triad to cry out, and in the effort that he made he woke up from this ulgUtmrfre and found himself on Ute clnb-room sofa, where h« had fallen asleep a little, before midnight", and where the waiter of the gambling room, in going out about live o'clock, hart le.tt him sleeping, out of pity for the ruined man. A misty December sunrise lighted up the window panes. Lucien went out, pawned his watch, took a bath, breakfasted, aud went to a recruiting officer, where he signed a' voluntary engagement in the First African Infantry. To-day Lucien de Hern is a lieutenant, he has only his pay to live on, but he gets out of it very well, being a steady oflicer and nevor touching a card ; it would seem also that he finds it possible to save some thing out of it for the other day, at Algiers, one of hia comrades walking a little behind in a hilly street of theKasptv, saw him give something Co a Untie sleeping Spanish girl in a doorway, and he had the indiscreet curiosity to see what Lucien had uiveu to the child.

The inquisitive one was much Rurprl&ld at the generosity of the poor lieutenant. Lucien de Hern had put into the hand of this indigent child a twenty-five franc piece.— Translated by Mary Simoiids, for the Boston Transcript. '