Ch. 8: Local Colour - Page 2

All Paris was there, the tout Paris of premières, of les courses, the tout Paris of clubsman of belles petites, of ladies à chignon jaune. Here were the Booksmen, the gommeux, they who font courir, the journalists, and here I observed with peculiar interest my great masters, M. Fortuné du Boisgobey and M. Xavier de Montépin.

In the intervals of the performance tout le monde crowded into our loge, and I observed that my mother and Lady Errand made an almost equal impression on many a gallant and enterprising young impresario.

We supped at the Cafe Bignon; toasts were carried; I also was carried home.

Next morning I partly understood the mental condition of Philippa. I had absolutely forgotten the events of the later part of the entertainment.

Several bills arrived for windows, which, it seems, I had broken in a moment of effusion.

Gendarmes arrived, and would have arrested me on a charge of having knocked down some thirty-seven of their number.

This little matter was easily arranged.

I apologised separately and severally to each of the thirty-seven braves hommes, and collectively to the whole corps, the French army, the President, the Republic, and the statue of Strasbourg in the Place de la Concorde. These duties over, I was at leisure to reflect on the injustice of English law.

Certain actions which I had entirely forgotten I expiated at the cost of a few thousand francs, and some dozen apologies.

For only one action, about which she remembered nothing at all, Philippa had to fly from English justice, and give up her title and place in society! Both ladies now charmed me with a narrative of the compliments that had been paid them; both absolutely declined to leave Paris.

'I want to look at the shops,' said my mother.

'I want the gommeux to look at me,' said Philippa.

Neither of them saw the least fun in my proposed expedition to Spain.

Weeks passed and found us still in the capital of pleasure.

My large fortune, except a few insignificant thousands, had passed away in the fleeting exhilaration of baccarat.

We must do something to restore our wealth.

My mother had an idea.

'Basil,' she said, 'you speak of Spain. You long to steep yourself in local colour. You sigh for hidalgos, sombreros, carbonados, and carboncillos, why not combine business with pleasure?

'Why not take the Alhambra?'

This was an idea!

Where could we be safer than under the old Moorish flag?

Philippa readily fell in with my mother's proposal. When woman has once tasted of public admiration, when once she has stepped on the boards, she retires without enthusiasm, even at the age of forty.

'I had thought,' said Philippa, of exhibiting myself at the Social Science Congress, and lecturing on self-advertisement and