Rewards and Fairies - Penn State University

Rewards and Fairies
I must have been half-crazy else I wouldn’t have struck up “Si ‘Then I guessed t’other man was Boney. He stamped about
le Roi m’avait donne Paris la grande ville!” I thought it might and swore at Talleyrand.
remind him.
‘“You forget yourself, Consul,” says Talleyrand, “or rather
‘“That is a good omen!” he says to Boney sitting all hunched you remember yourself—Corsican.”
up; and he looks straight at me.
‘“Pig!” says Boney, and worse.
‘“Abbe—oh, Abbe!” I says. “Don’t you remember Toby and ‘“Emperor!” says Talleyrand, but, the way he spoke, it
Hundred and Eighteen Second Street?”
sounded worst of all. Some one must have backed against the
‘He said not a word. He just crooked his long white finger folding doors, for they flew open and showed me in the middle
to the guard at the door while the carriage steps were let down, of the room. Boney whipped out his pistol before I could
and I skipped into the house, and they slammed the door in stand up.
the crowd’s face. ‘“You go there,” says a soldier, and shoves “General,” says Talleyrand to him, “this gentleman has a
me into an empty room, where I catched my first breath since habit of catching us canaille en deshabille. Put that thing
I’d left the barge. Presently I heard plates rattling next door— down.”
there were only
‘Boney laid it on the table, so I guessed which was master.
folding doors between—and a cork drawn. “I tell you,” some Talleyrand takes my hand—“Charmed to see you again,
one shouts with his mouth full, “it was all that sulky ass Sieyes’ Candide,” he says. “How is the adorable Dr Pangloss and the
fault. Only my speech to the Five Hundred saved the situa- noble Huron?”
tion.”
‘“They were doing very well when I left,” I said. “But I’m
‘“Did it save your coat?” says Talleyrand. “I hear they tore it not.”
when they threw you out. Don’t gasconade to me. You may ‘“Do you sell buttons now?” he says, and fills me a glass of
be in the road of victory, but you aren’t there yet.”
wine off the table.
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