THE DRESS CLOTHES OF MONSIEUR POMPONNET.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 5

THE DRESS CLOTHES OF MONSIEUR POMPONNET.

(By Leonard Merritt.)

It was thanks to Touquet that she was able to look so chic —the little baggage!—yet of all her suitors bouquet was the one she favoured least. Ho was the costumier at the corner of the Rue des Martyrs, and made a very fair thing of the second-hand clothes. It was to To-uquet’s that the tradesmen of the Quarter turned a.s a matter of course to hire dress suits for their nuptials ! It was in the well cleaned satins of Touquet’s that the brides’ mothers and the lady guests cut such imposing figures when they were photographed after the wedding breakfasts; it was oven Touquet who sometimes supplied a gown to one or another of the humble actresses at the Theatre Montmartre, and received a. couple of free tickets in addition to his fee. X tell yen that Touquet was not a person to be sneezed at, though he had passed the first flush of youth, and was never an Adonis. Besides, who was she, this little Lisette, who had the impudence to flout him ? A girl in a florist’s, if you can believe me, with no particular beauty herself, and not a sou by way of dot! And yet—one must confess it—she •turned a head as swiftly as she made a ‘buttonhole”; and Pomponnet, the pastry cook, was paying court to her, too—to say nothing of the homage of Messieurs Triootrin, the poet, and Goujaud, the painter, and Lajeunie, the novelist. You would never have guessed that her wages were only twenty francs a week as you watched her valse with Triootrin at the ball on Saturday evening, or as you saw her enter Pomponnet’s shop when the shutters were up on Sunday afternoon, to feast on his strawberry tarts. Her costumes were the cynosure of the Boulevard Rochechouart!

And they were all due to Touquet, Touquet the infatuated, who lent the fine feathers to her for the sake of a glance, or a pressure of the hand—and wept on his counter afterwards while he wondered whose arms might be embracing her In the costumes that he had cleaned and pressed with so much care- Often he swore that his folly should end—that she should be affianced to him, or go shabby; but, lo! in a day or two she would make her appearance again, to coax for the loan of a smart blouse, or “that hat with the mass of geraniums aud the brilliant buckle” —and Touquet would be as w’eak as ever.

Judge then, of his despair when ho heard that she had agreed to many Pomponnet! She told him the news with the air of an amiable gossip when she came to return a ball dress that she had borrowed.

“Elnfin,” she said, perched on the counter, and swinging her remorseless feet, “it is arranged; I desert the flowers for the pastry, and become the mistress of a shop. I shall have to beg from my good friend Monsieur Touquet no more—not at all! I shall be his client, like the rest. It will he better, hein?”

Touquet gfoaned. “You know well, Lisette,” he answered, ‘that it has been a joy to me to place the stock at your

disposal, even though it was to make you more attractive in the eyes of other men. Everything here that you have worn possesses a charm for me. I fondle the garments when you bring them back; I take them down from the pegs and dream over them ; Truly! there is no limit to my weakness, for often when a customer proposes to hire a frock that you have had, I cannot hear that she should profane it, and I say that it is engaged.” “You dear, kind Monsieur Touquet,” murmured the coquet; “how agreeable you are!” “I have always hoped for the day when the stock would be all your own, Lisette. And by and by we might have removed to a better position—even down the hill. Who knows ? We might have opened a business in the Madeleine Quarter! That would suit you better than a little cake shop up a side street ? And I would have risked it for you—l know how you incline to fashion. When I have taken you to a theatre, did you choose the Montmartre —.where we might- have gone for nothing—or the Belleville? Not you—that might do for other girls'! You have always demanded the theatres of the Grands Boulevards; a cup of coffee at the Cafo de la Paix is more t-o your taste than a bock and three hard boiled eggs at ‘The Purple Monkey.’ Heaven knows I trust you will be happy, but I cannot persuade myself -that this Pomponnet shares your ambitions; with his slum and stale pastry he is quite content.” “It is not stale,” she said.

“Well, we will, pass his pastry—though, word of honour, I bought some there last week that might have been baked before the Commune; but to recur tojiis soul, is it an affinity?” “Affinities are always hard up,” she pouted. “Bah!” exclaimed Touquet, “now your mind is running on that Gustave Triootrin —by ‘affinities’ I do not mean hungry poets. Why not have intrusted your happiness to ane ? I adore you; I have told you a thousand times that I adore you. Lisette, consider before it is too late! You cannot love this—this obscure baker?”

She gave a shrug “It is a fact that devotion has not robbed me of my appetite,” she confessed. “But what would you have? His business goes far better than you imagine. I have seen Ills books; and. anyhow, my sentiment for you is friendship, and no more.” “To the devil with friendship,” cried the unhappy wardrobe dealer; “did I dress you like the Empress Jospehihe for friendship?” “Bo not inock yourself of it,” she said, reprovingly; “remember that friendship is a beautiful flower, of which esteem is the root.’ ” And, having tin’own the adage to him, coilpled with a glance that drove him to distraction, the little flirt jumped off the counter and was gone. Much more wistfully she contemplated parting with 3iim whom the costumier had described as a “hungry poet”; but matrimony did not enter into tho poet’s scheme of things, nor, for that matter, had she ever regarded him as a possible parti. Yet a woman, may give her fancy where her reason refuses to follow, and when she imparted her news to Triootrin there was no smile on her, lips. “We shall not go to balls any more, old dear,” she said. “Monsieur Pomponnet has proposed marriage to me—and I range myself.” “Heartless girl,” exclaimed the young man, with tears in his eyes. “So much, for woman’s constancy!” “Mon Dieu,” she faltered, “you then love me, Gustave—really ?” “I do not know,” said Tricotrin, “but since I am to lose you, I prefer to think so. Oh, do not grieve for me—fortunately, there is always the Seine! And first I shall pour my misery into song: and in years to come, fair daughters at your side will read the

deathless poem, little dreaming that the Lisette I sang to is their mother. Some time —long after I am in mj grave, when France has honoured me at last —you may stand before a statue that hears my name and think ‘He loved me, and I broke his heart.!’ ” “Oh,” she whimpered, “rather than break your heart I—l might break the engagement! I might consider again, Gustave.”

“No, no,” returned Triootrin. “T will not reproach myself with the thought that I have marred your life; I will l leave you free! Besides, as I say, I am not certain that I should want you so much hut for the fact that I have lost you. After all, you will not appreciate the poem that immortalises you, and if I lived, many of your remarks about it would be sure to irritate me.”

“Why should I not appreciate it? Am I so stupid?”

“It is not that you are stupid, my soul,” he exclaimed; “it is that I am transicendentally clever. To tinderstand the virtues of my work one must have sipped from all the flowers of literature; “There is to be found in ifc Racine, Voltaire, Flaubert, Renan —and always Gustave Triootrin,’ as Lemaitra has written. He wrote, ‘ —and always Antonio France,’ but I paraphrase him slightly. So you are going to marry Pomponnet? Mon Dieu, when I have any sous in my pocket, I will ruin myself for the rapture of regretting yon among the pastry!” “I thought,” she said, a little mortified, “that you were going to -drown yourself?” “Am I not to write my Lament to you? I must eat while I write—why not pastry? Also, when lam penniless and starving, you may sometimes in your prosperity— And yet, perhaps, it is too much to ask!”

“Grant you credit, do you mean? Oh, yes, Gustave, how can you doubt that I would do that? In memory of ”

“In memory of the love that has been, you will allow me to run up a, small score of cakes, will you not, Lisette?”

“I will indeed!” she promised. “But, but—• Oh, it’s quite true, I should never understand you! A minute ago you made me think of you in the Morgue, and now you make me tiliink of you in the cake shop. What are you laughing at?” “I laught like Figaro,” said Triootrin, that I may not he obliged to weep.

■When are you going to throw yourself away, my little Lisette? Has my accursed rival induced you to fix a date ?” “We are to be married in a fortnight’s time,” she said. “And if you could undertake to be sensible, I would ask Alphonse to invite you to the breakfast.” “In a fortnight’s time hunger and a hopeless passion will probably have made an end of me,” replied the poet; “however, if I survive, the breakfast would certainly be welcome. Where is it to be held? I can recommend a restaurant that is especially fine at such affairs, and most moderate. ‘Photographs of the party are taken gratuitously in the Jardin d’Aoclimatation, and pianos are at the disposal of the ladies’; I quote from the menu. I study it in the window every time I pass. There are wedding breakfasts from six to twelve francs per head. At six francs the party have their choice of two soups and. three hors d’oeuvres. Then comes ‘poisson’—l fear it may be whiting—with sauce crevettes. filet de boeuf with tomates farcies, bouchees a la Peine, chicken, pigeons, salad, two vegetables, an ice, assorted fruits, and biscuits. The wines are Madeira, a bottle of Macon to each person, a bottle of Bordeaux among four persons, and a bottle of champagne among ten persons. Also coffee and liqueurs. At six francs a head! It *s good, hein! At seven francs there is a bottle of champagne among every eight persons—Pomponnet wall, of caul’s©, do as he thinks best. At eight francs a bottle is provided for every six persons'. I have too much delicacy to make suggestions, but should he be willing to soar to twelve francs a head, I anight eat enough to last a week —and of sit oh quality! The soups would then be bisque d’ecrevisse and consomme Rachel. Truite saumonee Joinrille would appear! Asparagus ‘in branches,’ and compote peches marasquin would he included. Also, in the twelve franc breakfast, the champagne begins to have a human name on the label!” Now, it is not certain how much of this information Lisette repeated to Pomponnet, but Pomponnet, having a Will of his own, refused to entertain M. Tricotrin at any price at all. Moreliver, he found it unconventional that she should desire the poet’s company, considering tho attentions that he had paid her; and she was forced to listen, with an air of humility which she was far from feeling, to a lecture of the responsibilities of her new position. “I am not a jealous man,” said the

pastrycook, who was as jealous a man as ever baked a pie, “hut it would ho discreet that you dropped this acquaintance now that wo are engaged. I konw •well that you have never taken the addresses of such a fellow seriously, and that it is only in the goodness of your hbart that you wish to present him with a blowout. Nevertheless, the betrothal of a man in my circumstances is much remarked; and the daughters of the hairdresser next door have had

their hopes of me—indeed, there is scarcely a neighbour who is not chagrined at the turn events have taken — ,and the world would be only too glad of an excuse to call me ‘fool.’ Pomponnet’s -wife must be above suspicion. You will remember that a little lightness of conduct which might be forgiven in the employee of the florist would be unseemly in my fiancee. No more conversation, with Monsieur Tricotrin, Lisette! Some dignity—some coldness in the bow when you pass him. The Boulevard will observe it; it will be approved.” '‘You, of course, know best, my dear Alphonse,” she returned -meekly; “I am only an inexperienced girl, and I am thankful to have your advice to guide me. But let me say that never, never has there been any ‘lightness of conduct’ to distress you. Monsieur TricotTin and I have been merely friends! If I have gone to a ball with 'him sometime;? —and I acknowledge that has happened—it has been because nobody more to my taste has offered to take ■me.” She had ground her little teeth under the infliction of his homily, and it was only by dint of thinking hijrd of his profits that she aflb.sained from retorting that he might marry the daughters of the hairdresser and go to UgandaHowever, during the next week or

so she did not chance to meet the # poet on the Boulevard, and since she wished to conquer her tenderness for him one cannot doubt that all would have been well but for the Editor of “Le DemiMot.” By a freak of. fate the Editor of “Be* Bemi-Mot” was moved to invite IM. Tricotrin to dine at his house two

days previous to the wedding. What followed? Naturally Tricotrin must present himself in evening dress. Naturally, also, he must go to Touquet’s to hire the suit. “Regard,” said the costumier, “here is a suit that I have just acquired. Monsieur will observe that it is of the most distinguished cut —quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to monsieur that it comes to me through the valet of the Comte de Chateau-Leroy!” “Mon dieu!” said Triootrin. “Let me try it on !” And he was so gratified by his appearance in it that he barely winced at the thought of the expense. “I am improving my position,” he soliloquised; “if I have not precisely inherited tho mantle of Victor Hugo 1 , I have at any rate hired the dress » ait of the Comte de Chateau-Leroy!”

Never had a more impressive spectacle been witnessed in Montmartre than Tricotrin’s departure from hi's lodging in the Rue des Trois Freres shortly after 6 o’clock. Wearing a shirt of Fitou’s, Flam ant’s patent leather boots and a white tie contributed by Goujaud, the young man sallied forth with the deportment of the count himself. Only one thing more did he desire—a flower for his buttonhole : and Lisette remained in her situation until tho morrow. What more natural, finally, than that he should hie to the florist’s? It was the first time that she had seen her lover in evening dress, and sentiment overpowered her as he entered.

“Thou!” she murmured, paling. On the poet, too, the influence of the clothes was very strong. Attired like a jeune premier, he craved with all the dramatic instinct of his nature for a love scene; and, instead of fulfilling his intention to beg for a rosebud at cost price, he gazed at her soul fully and breathed “Lisette!”

“So we have met again!” she said. “The world is small,” returned the poet, oblivious of tho fact that he had come to the shop. “And am I yet remembered ?”

“It is not likely I should forget you in a few days,” she said, more practically ; “I didn’t forget about the breakfast, either, but Alphonse put his foot down.”

“Pig!” said the poet. “And yet it may be better so! How could I eat in such an hour?” “However, you are not disconsolate this evening?” she suggested. “Mon dieu, what a swell you are!” “Bah! Some fashionable assembly that will boro me beyond endurance!’ he sighed. “With you alone, Lisette, have I known true happiness—the tram rides on summer nights that were joyous because we loved, the simple meals that were sweetened by your smiles!” “Oh, Gustave!” she said. “Wait, I must give you a flower for your coat. “I shall keep it all my life!” vowed Tricotrin. “Tell me, little one—l dare not stay now, because my host lives a long way off—but this evening could we not meet once again? For the last time, to say farewell? I have nearly two francs fifty, and we might go to supper if you agree.” It was arranged before bo took leave of her that she should meet him outside the debit at the corner of the Hue de

Sontay at 11 o’clock, and sup with him there, in a locality where she was unlikely to bo recognised. Rash enough, this conduct, for a young woman who was be married to another man on the next day but one! But a greater imprudenco to follow. They supped, i.iiey sentimentalised, and when they parted in the Champs Elysees and the moonshine, she gave to him from her bosom a little roso-colcured envelope that contained nothing less than a lock of her hair.

The poet placed it tenderly in his waistcoat pocket; and, after lie had wept, and quoted poetry to tho stars, forgot it. He began to wish, that lie had not mixed his liquors quite so impartially ; and, on tho morrow, when he woke, he was mindful of nothing more grievous than a splitting headache. Now Touquet, who could not sleep of nights because the pastrycook was going to marry Lisette, made a practice of examining the pockets of all garments returned to him. with an eye to stray sons; and when lie proceeded to examine the pockets of the dress suit returned by M. Tricotrin, what buV'l but that ho drew forth a rose tinted envelope containing a tresis of hair, and inscribed “To Gustavo, from Lisette. Adieu.” And the editor who invited M. Tricotrin had never heard of Lisette; never heard of Pomponnet; / did not know that such a person as Touquet existed • yet thb editorial caprice had manipulated destinies. How powerful are editors! How complicated is life! But Lisette would never pardon such with the emotions of the soul! The shop reeled before Touquet. All the good and the bad in his character battled tumultuously. In one moment he aspired to be generous and restore to Lisette the evidence of her guilt; in the next he sunk to tho base thought of displaying it to Pomponnet and breaking off the match. The discovery fired his brain. No longer was he a nonentity, the “odd man out” —chance had transformed him to the master of the situation. Full well he knew that there would bo no nuptials next day were Pomponnet aware of his fiancee’s perfidy; it needed but to go to him to say, “Monsieur, my sense of duty compels me to inform you ” How easy it would be! He laughed hysterically.

But Lisette would never pardon arch a meanness—she would always despise and hate him! He would have tern her from her rival’s arms, it was true, yet his own would still he empty. “Ah, Lisette, Lisette!” groaned the wretched man; and, swept to the evil by the force of passion, lie cudgelled his mind to devise some piece of trickery, some diabolical artifice, by which the incriminating token might he placed in the pastrycooks hands as if by accident. And while he pondered—his “whole soul a cliaos”—in that liour Pomponnet entered to hire a dress suit for his wedding! Touquet raised his head, blanched to the lips. “Regard,” ho teaid, with a fenced calm terrible to behold; “here is a suit that I have just acquired. Monsieur will observe that it is of the most distinguished cut—quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to - Vi.sieur that it comes to me th couch the valet

of the Oonipte de Chateau-Leroy.” And, unsoon by the guileless bridegroom, ho s’ipped tho damning proof into a pocket of the trousers, where his knowledge of the pastrycook's attitudes assured him that it was even moro certain to bo found than in the waistcoat.

“Mon Dion!” said the other, duly impressed by the suit’s pedigree; “let me try it on. . . The coat is rather tight,” he complained, “l>ut it has undeniably an air!”

“No more than one customer has worn it,” gasped the wardrobe dealer, haggardly: “Monsieur Gustavo Tricotrin, the poet, who hired it last night! The suit is practically now; I have no other in the establishment to compare with it. Listen. Monsieur Pomponnet ! To an old patron Like yourself I will ho liberal- wear it this evening for an hour in your home—if you find it not to your figure, there will he timo to make another selection before tho ceremony to-morrow. You shall have this on trial.'l will make no extra charge.” Such magnanimity was bound to have its ©lrec*. and five minutes later Touquet’s plot had triumphed. But tho tension had been frightful; the door had scarcely closed when he sank into a chair, trembling in every limb, and for Lie rest of the day he attended to ii;.s business like ono moving in a trance. Meanwhile, tho unsuspecting Pomponnet reviewed the arrangement with considerable satisfaction; and when he came to attire himself, after the cake shop was shut, his reflected imago pleased him so well that ho was tempted to stroll abroad. Ho decided to call on his betrothed, and to exhibit Himself a little on the Boulevard. Accordingly he put some money in the pocket of tho waistcoat, soaped his silk hat, to give it an additional lustre, and sallied forth in high good humour. “How splendid you look, my dear Alphonse!” exclaimed Lisette, little dreaming it was the same suit that she had approved on Tricotrin the previous evening. Her innooent admiration was agreeable to Pomponnet; he patted her on the cheek. “In truth,” he said carelessly, “I had forgotten that I had it on 1 But I was so impatient for to-morrow, _my pet angel that I could not remain alone, and I had to come to see you.” They wore talking on her doorstep, for she had no apartment in which it would have been convenient to entertain, and it appeared to him that the terrace of a cafe would be more congenial. “Run upstairs and make your toilette, my loving duck,” he suggested, ‘and 1 shall take you out for a tasso. While you are getting ready I will smoke a cigar.” And ho drew his cigar case from the breastpocket of the ooat, and took a matchbox from tho pooket w.iere ho had put Jus oasli. It was a balmy evening, with the ndrair of spring, and the streets were full of life- As ho promenaded with her on the Boulevard, Pomponnet did not fail to note the attention commanded by bis costume. He strutted proudly, and when they reached the cafe and took tlheir seats, he gave his order with all the authority of the President. “Mon Dieu.” he remarked, “it ia

pleasant here, hein ?” And then, stretching his legs;, he thrust both his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Comment ?” he murmured. “What have I found.?. . . .Now is not this amusing—l swear it is a billet doux!” 'He bent, chuckling, to the light—and hounded in his chair with an oath that turned a' dozen heads towards them. ‘■Traitress, 5 ’ roared Pomponnet, “'miserable traitress ! It is your name! It is your writing! It is your hair! Do not deny it; give me your head—it matches to a shade! Jezebel, last night you have met Monsieur Tricot-rim —you have deceived me!” Lisette, who had jumped as high as he in recognising the envelope, sat like one paralysed now. Her tongue refused to move. For the instant, the catastrophe seemed to her of supernatural agency—it was as if a miracle had happened, as she snv her fiancee produce her lover’s keepsake. All she could stammer at last was: “Let us go away—pay for the coffee !”• “I will not pay,” shouted M. Pomponnet. “Pay for it yourself, jade—l have done with you!” And, leaving her spellbound at the table, he strode from the terrace like a madman before the waiters could stop him. Oh, iof course, he was well known in the cafe and they did not detain Lisette, but it was a most ignominious position for a young woman. And there was no wedding next day, md everybody knew why. The little coquette, who had mocked suitors by the dozen, was jilted almost on the threshold of the Mairie. She smacked Triootriri’s face in the morning, but her humiliation was so acute that it demanded the .salvo of immediate marriage; and at the moment she ooukl think of no one better than Touquet.

So Touquet won her after all: and though by this time she may guess' how lie accomplished it, ho will tell you—word cf honour !• —that never, never has he had occasion for regret.— “The Bystander.”