St. Landry democrat., 1888-06-23

voice:
''No more than that, STRIP
Not cent" replied the bookseller,
commencing to turn out the lights.
His visitor took up the portfolio and
laid it down again. He shook as with
the palsy. The bookseller noted him
out of the corner of his eye, and jingled
some silver in his pocket.
WELL" said the old man, 81 must
have some money, and"
The bookseller tossed the portfolio
contemporary to corner of the coun-
ter, and handed him two silverdollars.
They jingled in the tremulous old hand
like castanets as the visitor went out,
with bent head, like one who had done
dishonorable thing.
The door had scarcely closed behind
him, when the bookseller pounced on
the portfolio like tiger on its prey.
"Egadr' he cried, what luck! A
'Pucello' for quarter, and the plates
to illustrate it for"
He packed the prints carefully back
in their portfolio, wrapped the portfolio
in paper, and before he began his din
ner at Delmonico' had the cashier lock
the package in the safe, to make sure
nothing should happen to it during the
progress of the feast.
With the recurrence of spring en-
broidered with the usual New York ac-
cessories of snow storms and May morn
ings, the bookseller started on his IAN
nual trip to Europe" as his circulars
put it. At the bottom of his trunk,
trebly wrapped in paper and oiled silk,
were book and some prints done up
in one package. On this package,
which had originally cost the owner
two dollars and twenty-five cents, there
was an insurance of two hundred and
fifty dollars.
Deep in the slums of Belleville, a
haggard, unkempt man worke in a
dirty little room, with dirty bed in
one corner, at a bookbinder's bench
There were tools of the bookbinder' S
trade on a rickety table. There was
also an absinthc bott and tumbler
half full of green-gray compound
that bore strange resem blance to the
complexion of the man himself, or
which his complexion strangely re-
sembled. AS he worked, the man sang,
in a croaking voice, one of those foul
songs common in the low concert halls
of Paris
Sacred name of blue hog!" said
the book binder, breaking off in his
chant. why don't you come in,
IDIOT"
The door opened, and the person
who had knocked entered. The book
binder looked at him, and growled:
''Well, you are back, as usual, Ell?
You come, like the cholera at Marseil-
les. with summer. What is it now?"
His visitor was the New York book
seller, and he had a package under his
arm. He looked calmly around him,
with the expression of man not quite
stranger to the place, and sat down
on the only stool.
so you haven't drunk yourself
crazy yet" he remarked, pleasantly.
upon my soul, Lurat, yon must be
made of gutta-percha-"
"Have you come all the way from
New York to tell me that?" demanded
the book-binder, sourly.
mo such fool" replied the book
seller. '.Are you busy?"
IAN / not always, when / choose to
be?"
True enough. Well, do you choose
to be little busier?"
The bookseller had united his pack
age, and now spread out a book and
some prints upon his knee.
Here is a book" said he, ''that
would be really fine in fifty-franc
binding by Tout
The book-binder. who had laid by his
work. took the prints and the volumes
up, and examined them with profess
sional interest even his sottishness
could not overcome.
at would look better, said he, ''in
a hundred-franc binding"
..Seventy-fye, you mean," corrected
the bookseller
mo; mean hundred.
II think you mean eighty"
Il will mean hundred and fifty
next time" replied the book-binder,
holding the package out to him.
The bookseller motioned him to keep
it, and got up.
..Do your best with it, Lurat" he
said, ssand when shall I come for it?'
Lurat named date and the book
seller departed. The book-binder
watched him out with scornful flash
in his alcohol-reddened eye, and NUT
tered to his back, vanishing down the
unclean stairs:
s.What a swindler! ! wonder il
there are any people in America but
swindlers and fools. And it is for such
scum that / am rascal, who might be
an honest.man.
He drowned the reflection with a
gulp Of absinthe, and set to work nurs-
ing another tumbler full.
Ten days later, the bookseller was
writing letters in his room in the
Hotel DIES Deux Mondes, when a fat
man, with fat, solid-looking package
in his hand, was ushercd in by SER