Gerald Kersh - The Best of Gerald Kersh

‘Thirteen-year-old,’ old George said, ‘making you sixty-three to my seventy-two. Dat were a sad business, but as ye sow, so shall ye reap, they says. Live a vagabond, die a vagabond. Live in sin, die in sin——’

‘All right, George,’ said Mr Lagg, ‘you’re not in chapel now … I don’t know how you got at it, sir, but Jolly Jumbo (as he called hisself) lef’ two people and a dog behind. Hauled out his vans, eleven o’clock at night, and left word with Dr MacVitie (the old one, that was) to go up to Wagnall’s Barn.

‘But he was in the middle o’ dinner, and wouldn’t go. Then he was called out to the Squire’s place, and didn’t get home till twelve o’clock next night. And there was a liddle dog that kep’ barking and barking, and trying to pull him up the path by the trousis-leg. But Dr MacVitie——’

‘Dat were a mean man, dat one, sure enough!’

‘You be quiet, George. Dr MacVitie kicked the liddle dog into the ditch, and unhooked the bell, and tied up the knocker, and went to bed. Couple o’ days later, Wagnall, going over his land, has a look at that barn, and he sees a young girl stone dead, a young fellow dying, and a poor liddle dog crying fit to break your heart. Oh, he got old Dr MacVitie up to the barn then all right, but t’was too late. The fellow, he died in the Cottage Hospital.

‘They tried to catch the dog, but nobody could. It stood off and on, like, until that pair was buried by the parish. Then it run off into the woods, and nobody saw it again——’

‘Oh, but didn’t they, though?’ said old George.

Mr Lagg said: ‘It’s an old wives’ tale, sir. They do say that this here liddle grey French dog comes back every year on August the fourteenth to scrat and bark at the doctor’s door, and lead him to Wagnall’s Barn. And be he in the middle of his supper or be he full, be he weary or rested, wet or dry, sick or well, go he must…. He died in 1924, so you see it’s nothing but an old wives’ tale——’

‘Dey did used to git light-headed, like, here on the marshes,’ said old George, ‘but dey do say old Dr MacVitie mustn’t rest. He mus’ pay dat call to dat empty barn, every year, because of his hard heart. Tomorrow, by daylight, look and see if doctor’s door be’nt all scratted up, like.’

‘George, you’re an old woman in your old age,’ said Mr Lagg. ‘We take no stock of such things in these parts, sir. Would you like to come up to the lounge and look at the television until closing time?’

‘MADAME, I have the honour of wishing you a very good night,’ said Ratapoil, kissing his wife’s fingers. She curtsied graciously. Tessier started then, for a three-branched candlestick seemed to detach itself, of its own accord, from the shadows in a far corner of the dining-room. It was only a slave lighting Madame Ratapoil upstairs, but he was dark and silent as smoke out of a magical Arabian bottle.

The lady having been bowed out, Ratapoil threw off his gold-buttoned blue coat, and loosened his waistcoat, and the waist-band of his trousers, too. Tessier said dryly: ‘Aie, Ratapoil, old wolf! You stand on ceremony nowadays!’

Ratapoil said, half apologetically: ‘Tessier, old comrade, in a savage country it is a gentleman’s duty to preserve the Decencies.’

‘You have done well for yourself,’ said Tessier, draining his glass. ‘You have come a long way, Ratapoil, since you and I dined off dried dates and crawling green water under the Pyramids … not that it is much cooler here in New Orleans——’ A great black hand came down over his shoulder, and filled his glass from a crystal decanter. ‘– Eh, Ratapoil! Is that a man, or a ghost? Send him to bed, for God’s sake! I hate people coming up behind me like that.’

Ratapoil dismissed the slave with a jerk of the head. ‘Not a bad boy, that one,’ he said. ‘He is worth five dollars a pound, and weighs a hundred and ninety-five; but I won him at piquet, as against three hogshead of rum.’

‘What, so now he deals in rum and slaves! Molière gave us the Bourgeois Gentilhomme ; Ratapoil gives us the Gentilhomme Bourgeois ! Ratapoil turns tradesman. Aie, but times have changed indeed!’

Ratapoil said: ‘So they have, old fellow. And one must move with them; although, of course, if anyone but you called me a tradesman he should feel a few inches of my sword in his tripes within ten minutes ….’ He sighed. ‘But nobody would dare. Here, as heretofore, I am still Ratapoil, the Jack of Swords. Nobody dares to challenge me in New Orleans, any more than they did in Paris in the old days; unless they happen to be very drunk. Then, I pink them in the arm to teach them better manners; or, if they are very young, simply disarm them. Oho, I assure you, Tessier, the Creoles treat me with the respect to which I am accustomed. But among themselves they fight like the very devil, either with the colchemarde or else the sword-cane …. Not your line, eh, old comrade?’

Tessier shook his head, and said: ‘No, I used to have a tolerably light hand with a rapier, fifteen or twenty years ago. Your colchemarde, however, you can keep – it is nothing but a triangular pig-sticker. I am an artilleryman, when all is said and done. Well … I take it that you have not made your fortune exclusively as Master of Arms in New Orleans? … For example, this fine house, “three hogshead of rum” for a slave in livery, etcetera——’

‘– Oh, one thing leads to another,’ said Ratapoil. ‘In this country one finds oneself becoming a tradesman in spite of oneself. If you want to twist the play titles of Molière, you can call me Le Bourgeois Malgré Lui …. Clever, eh? I opened my little Académie in the Vieux Carré, in the spring of 1813. It was not done, I may say, without a little bloodshed. The Master of Fence at that time was a Swiss named Harter. One word led to another, we measured swords, he was buried the following day (nothing keeps long in this humidity), and I took over. I challenged a Spanish Fencing Master and, on his decease, accommodated his pupils also. By way of advertisement, I then challenged the entire Army of His Majesty, the King of Spain, to come on, one at a time, with sabre, rapier or colchemarde, for the honour of France. Only half a dozen Spaniards took up the challenge; if that child’s play had gone on, His Catholic Majesty would have had to abdicate for lack of soldiers. Meanwhile, I played a little at cards and dice. Nobody dared to cheat me. I won. The stakes were money, or money’s worth – rum, molasses, cane-sugar, coffee, or what not. What do you do with a storehouse-full of such truck?’

‘Sell it,’ said Tessier.

‘Exactly; thereby becoming a kind of merchant. For example, I bought this house with tobacco. I may also mention that at this time we were living at the Saint Timothy Hotel, at a cost of thirty dollars a month. You may remember that my dear wife Louise was brought up by a most respectable aunt, who used to let elegant furnished apartments to unmarried gentlemen in one of the best quarters of Paris——’

‘– I remember your attic room,’ said Tessier.

‘To cut a long story short,’ said Ratapoil. ‘Louise said: “They are robbing us, my dear. I could provide accommodation twice as good for twenty dollars a month. The steamboats are on the river now; elegant ladies and gentlemen are coming into New Orleans in place of the Kaintoucks, the flat-boat men. Let us build a fine hotel, stylishly furnished.” “To provide good food and lodging, twice as good as at the Saint Timothy, for twenty dollars a month?” I asked. She said: “No; for forty dollars a month…. And, since you must gamble, why not do it under your own roof? We could set apart a nicely-appointed room for cards and so forth, strictly for the nobility, and with you to keep order….” In brief, old comrade: I am merchant, hotelier, and anything you like. I am rotten rich. And I take this opportunity of telling you that, with the exception of my wife and my toothbrush, everything I have is yours to command.’