第24章

Colonel Silky was evidently struck with my appearance. An officer of his readiness and practice saw at once that I might be made to diminish no small part of the ways and means of his present campaign, and precisely in proportion as he admired me, he began to look cold and indifferent. This management could not deceive me, my clairvoyance defying any such artifices; but it had a sensible effect on Desiree, who, happening very much to want money for a particular object just at that moment, determined, on the spot, to abate no less than fifty francs from the price she had intended to ask. This was deducting five francs more than poor Adrienne got for the money she had expended for her beautiful lace, and for all her toil, sleepless nights, and tears; a proof of the commissionaire's scale of doing business. The bargain was now commenced in earnest, offering an instructive scene of French protestations, assertions, contradictions and volubility on one side, and of cold, seemingly phlegmatic, but wily Yankee calculation, on the other. Desiree had set her price at one hundred and fifty francs, after abating the fifty mentioned, and Colonel Silky had early made up his mind to give only one hundred. After making suitable allowances for my true value before I was embellished, the cost of the lace and of the work, Desiree was not far from the mark; but the Colonel saw that she wanted money, and he knew that two napoleons and a half, with his management, would carry him from Paris to Havre. It is true he had spent the difference that morning on an eye-glass that he never used, or when he did it was only to obscure his vision; but the money was not lost, as it aided in persuading the world he was a colonel and was afflicted with that genteel defect, an imperfect vision. These extremes of extravagance and meanness were not unusual in his practice. The one, in truth, being a consequence of the other.

{management = in Cooper's time, a word suggesting conniving or unscrupulous manipulation; Havre = le Havre, an important French port}

"You forget the duty, Desiree," observed the military trader; "this compromise law is a thousand times worse than any law we have ever had in America."{compromise law = the American Tariff Act of 1832, which reduced tariffs on some items, but retained the high customs duties on the import of textile products}

"The duty!" repeated the woman, with an incredulous smile; "monsieur, you are not so young as to pay any duty on a pocket-handkerchief! Ma foi, I will bring twenty--oui, a thousand from England itself, and the douaniers shall not stop one."{douaniers = customs officials}

"Ay, but we don't smuggle in America," returned the colonel, with an aplomb that might have done credit to Vidocq himself; "in our republican country the laws are all in all."{Vidocq = Francois Vidocq (1775-1857), a senior French police official who was secretly a burglar, and who "investigated" his own crimes for a long time before being exposed}

"Why do so many of your good republicans dress so that the rue de Clery don't know them, and then go to the chateau?" demanded the commissionaire, very innocently, as to appearance at least.

{chateau = palace}

"Bah! there are the five napoleons--if you want them, take them--if not, I care little about it, my invoice being all closed."Desiree never accepted money more reluctantly. Instead of making one hundred and fifty-five francs out of the toil and privations, and self-denial of poor Adrienne, she found her own advantages unexpectedly lessened to fifty-five; or, only a trifle more than one hundred per cent.

But the colonel was firm, and, for once, her cupidity was compelled to succumb. The money was paid, and I became the vassal of Colonel Silky; a titular soldier, but a traveling trader, who never lost sight of the main chance either in his campaigns, his journeys, or his pleasures.

To own the truth, Colonel Silky was delighted with me. No girl could be a better judge of the ARTICLE, and all his cultivated taste ran into the admiration of GOODS. I was examined with the closest scrutiny; my merits were inwardly applauded, and my demerits pronounced to be absolutely none. In short, I was flattered; for, it must be confessed, the commendation of even a fool is grateful. So far from placing me in a trunk, or a drawer, the colonel actually put me in his pocket, though duly enveloped and with great care, and for some time I trembled in every delicate fibre, lest, in a moment of forgetfulness, he might use me.

But my new master had no such intention. His object in taking me out was to consult a sort of court commissionaire, with whom he had established certain relations, and that, too, at some little cost, on the propriety of using me himself that evening at the chateau of the King of the French. Fortunately, his monitress, though by no means of the purest water, knew better than to suffer her eleve to commit so gross a blunder, and I escaped the calamity of making my first appearance at court under the auspices of such a patron.

{eleve = pupil}