"I am listening."

"I am a man of great tact; and I believe that you are in love with the girl who was here just now."

"Indeed? you didn't need any great tact to discover that."

"But it's essential to find out whether she likes you."

"Why shouldn't she?"

"You are so young!"

"She thinks I am thirty."

"True! I had forgotten that. Then you must try to enlist her in our interest; you understand, my dear Jacques, that to have a great success in a town, I must make, or find, accomplices."

"What! can't you do without them? You are not very clever, so far as I can see."

"My little Jacques, you are just beginning your pranks and your travels; you don't know the world as yet; if you had studied it as I have, you would know that even the most cunning people often require the help of others to succeed; and that is what I call complicity. The tradesmen enter into agreements with one another, in order to get better prices for their wares; the steward makes a bargain with the tradesmen about paying their bills; the courtiers put their heads together to flatter the prince and conceal the truth from him; the young dandy plots with a dancer at the Opera to ruin a farmer-general; the doctor has an understanding with the druggist, the tailor with the dealer in cloth, the dressmaker with the lady's maid, the author with the _claqueurs_, who also have an understanding with one another about selling the tickets they receive for applauding; stockbrokers make agreements to raise and lower quotations, cabals to ruin the sale of a work by a man who is not of their coteries, musicians to play badly the music of a confrere, actors to prevent the production of a play in which they do not act; and wives have a most excellent understanding with their husbands' friends. All this, my dear boy, is complicity. Need you be surprised then, that a sleight-of-hand man, a manipulator of goblets, requires accomplices?--So much the worse for the idiots who allow themselves to be tricked! or rather, so much the better; for if there were no illusion, there would be very little enjoyment.--As for myself, I require to know beforehand who the people are who come to consult me; for you understand that I am no more of a sorcerer than other men. In order that you, while playing the somnambulist, may divine the pains that people are feeling, as well as those that they have felt, I must teach you your lesson in advance. That won't prevent our making cures, please G.o.d! but we must impose on the mult.i.tude; and men are so const.i.tuted that the marvelous delights and always will delight them.

Now then, this little servant seems to me very sly and very wide awake, and we must make her our accomplice; you will give her love, and I money. With the two, we shall be very unlucky or very bungling if we do not enlist her in our cause."

I was overjoyed by my companion's proposition; to give love to Clairette was my only thought, my only desire! But, as the little hunchback constantly enjoined prudence upon me, and requested me to do nothing without consulting him, I did not mention my appointment with the young servant; he might have considered it too abrupt, too sudden, and not for anything in the world would I have missed my first rendezvous.

Master Graograicus proceeded to tell me the result of his walk about the town; he was already familiar with the gossip, the intrigues, recent events, the appointments about to be made, the diseases most in vogue, the persons to be treated with consideration, the marriages soon to take place and those which were broken off,--in a word, everything of present interest to the bigwigs of the place. Give me a small town for a place to learn all the news in a short time! to be informed, all one needs to do is to stop a moment at the baker's, the hair-dresser's and the fruit-woman's.

My companion had a great knack at remembering everything that could possibly be useful to him; his memory was almost always accurate; it supplied the place of learning, as in many people it supplies the place of wit.

Our supper was served. The host came first himself, to lay the cloth and take our orders. Clairette appeared finally; she seemed less confident than on the occasion of her first visit; she kept her eyes on the floor, and paid no heed to my meaning glances and the little hunchback's sly smile. I was on pins and needles; I was afraid that she had changed her mind and her determination. I was a novice in amorous intrigue, and I did not know that a woman never conceals her wishes so effectively as at the moment that they are about to be fulfilled.

She left the room, and I did what I could to hasten the supper; but my companion, who was not in love, abandoned himself with keen delight to the pleasures of the table. I had no choice but to watch him linger over each dish, and to listen to his jests concerning my lack of appet.i.te. He was very far, however, from suspecting the real cause of my preoccupation.

The supper came to an end at last, and we went into our bedroom, where there were two beds side by side. I made haste to jump into mine, placing my trousers at my feet, that I might find them more readily.

After making the tour of the room a dozen times, and arranging his philters and pill boxes, until my nerves fairly tingled with impatience, my companion finally decided to go to bed. I awaited that moment as the signal for my happiness, for I knew that he would be sound asleep as soon as he was in bed.

At last that instant so ardently desired arrived. My comrade was in bed; I made certain that he was snoring. I rose, slipped into my trousers, and, not taking the time to put on my shoes, I hurried to the door, opened it very softly, and stood on the landing.

I felt my way upstairs, making no noise, in my bare feet, and holding my breath, I was so afraid of giving the alarm to the people in the house, and of seeing that unfamiliar felicity which I burned to know elude my grasp. At last I reached the appointed place at the top of the stairs; I heard a faint cough and my heart told me that I was near Clairette. I found a door ajar, and by the light of a night lamp, I saw the little servant awaiting me.

The girl wore nothing but a short petticoat and a jacket, evidently a.s.suming that an elaborate toilet was not necessary in the mysteries of somnambulism; but no woman had ever seemed to me so bewitching, nor had I ever seen a woman look at me in such an expressive fashion.

"I was waiting for you," she said; "let's go right on with the lesson your companion interrupted so unpleasantly; I am anxious to know how you are going to make me young!"

"You don't need to be made young," I said; "all you need is to stay just as you are now."

"Yes, that's what I meant. Let's make haste. See, I'll sit down and shut my eyes as I did before."

And without waiting for my reply, Clairette sat down on the foot of her bed, doubtless because the only chair in the room did not seem to her strong enough to stand our experiment in magnetism. I was careful not to urge my pupil to do otherwise, and I went at once and took my place by her side. I was too excited then to be timid; and Clairette, with her eyes still closed, contented herself with saying:

"Oh! is that the way? is that what makes a person young? Why, Pierre and Jerome have taught me as much already!"

I had repeated my experiment several times and had fallen asleep in Clairette's arms, when a great noise woke us both. The uproar seemed to come from the room beneath; we distinguished a confused murmur of voices, among others that of the inn-keeper, calling Clairette and shouting for a light.

What was I to do? If the inn-keeper himself should come upstairs, where was I to hide? There was nothing in Clairette's room large enough to hide me from her master's eyes. The young woman pushed me from the room and begged me to save her from the anger of her employer, who did not propose that the servants in his inn should have weaknesses for others than himself.

While she blew out her lamp and made a pretence of striking a light, I went downstairs with no very clear idea what I was going to say. I had no sooner reached the floor below than someone came to me, grasped my arm and whispered in my ear:

"Play the sleep-walker; I had an attack of indigestion, I took our host's bedroom for the cabinet, and a tureen containing soup-stock for a night vessel. Don't be alarmed, I will get you out of the sc.r.a.pe."

I recognized the voice of my companion, and I at once recovered my courage. The inn-keeper, irritated because no light was brought, went up himself to Clairette's room, where she was still striking the flint without using tinder--an infallible method of striking fire without striking a light. At last our host came down again with two lighted candles; he was on the point of entering his room, when he saw me walking about the corridor, in my shirt, with solemn tread, carrying my trousers under my arm, as I had not had time to put them on.

"What does this mean?" he demanded, gazing at me with an expression of surprise mingled with alarm; "what are you doing here, monsieur? who are you looking for, at this time of night? Was it you who came into my room and woke me up, with a dull noise that sounded like a drum, and filled the room with an infernal smell? Answer me!"

I was careful not to reply and continued to walk slowly along the corridor; the inn-keeper followed me with his two candles, and Pierre and Jerome, the two men-servants, attracted by the noise, awaited with curiosity the upshot of the adventure. At last a groan came from the inn-keeper's bedroom.

"Ah! there's someone in my room!" he cried, turning pale; "come here, you fellows, and go on ahead."

He pushed Pierre and Jerome before him, and they entered the room where my companion was, leaving me in the corridor. Soon I heard our host's voice, who seemed very wroth with Master Graograicus. I concluded that it was time to make peace between them, and with that end in view I stalked solemnly into the room where they were quarrelling.

At my appearance the hubbub ceased.

"Hush! silence! attention!" said my companion in a low tone; "it's Tatouos, in a somnambulistic state. I will put him in communication with myself, and you'll see that he will tell you all I have done to-night."

The little hunchback came to me at once. He pa.s.sed his hands in front of my face several times, put his forefinger on the end of my nose, in order, he said, to establish communication, and began his questions:

"What have I had to-night?"

"Pains in the stomach."

"And then?"

"Nausea."

"And then?"

"Colic."

"There! what did I tell you just now?" cried my companion, turning toward the stupefied audience. "But let's go on; this is nothing; I'll wager that he will tell you everything I did.--What caused my trouble?"

"Indigestion."

"And the indigestion?"

"From eating too much supper."

"Surprising! prodigious!" said the host, crowding between his two servants.

"Hush!" said my companion; "don't break the spell.--Then what did I do?"

"You got up."