The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-11-10
THE PIECE OF GOLD
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WHEN Lucien Hem saw has last
wv hurdred-franc note gripped by
the bankkeeper's rake, and rose from
the roulette table, where he had lost
the last fragments of his little fortune,
collected for this supreme struggle,
he felt giGdy and thought he was go
ing to tall
With dizzy head and tottering legs
he threw himself down upon the broad
leathern settee surrounding the play
table.
For some minutes he gaeed vacantly
on the clandestine gambling-house, in
which he had squandered the best
years OF his youth, recognized the raw
aged faces of the gamblers, crudely
lighted W by the three large shaded
lamps; listened to the light jingle of
gold on the cloth-covered table; felt
that he was ruined, lost; recollected
that he had at home the pair of regu-
latiun pistols which his father, Gen.
Hem, then simple captain, had used
so well in the attack of Zaatcha; then,
overcome by fatigue, he sank into a
profound sleep.
When he arose, with a parched
mouth, he saw by the clock that he had
slept for barely half an hour, and felt
an imperious need for breathing The
night air. The clock hands marked
quarter before midnight.
At that moment old Dronski-a pill
lar of the gambling house, the classic
pole, wearing the threadbare hooded
wooden cloak, ornamented all over with
grease stains-approached Lucien, and
muttered a few words in his grizzled
beard.
"Len2 me fve-franc piece, mon
sieur. It's now two days since I've
stirred out of the club, and for two
days the II has never turned up.
Taught at me if you like, but I'll suffer
my hand to be cut off if that number
does not turn up on the stroke of mid
night"
Lucien Hem shrugged his shoulders.
He had not even enough in his pocket
to meet this tax, which the frequent
ers of the place called "te Poles hun
dred sous" He passed into the ante
chamber, took his hat and fur coat,
and descended the stairs with feverhh
rapidly.
Since four o'clock, when Lucien had
shut himself up in the gaming house,
snow had fallen heavily, and the street
"a street in the center of Paris, very
narrow, and built with great houses
on either Side-was completely white.
In the calm sky, blue black, the cold
stars glittered.
The ruined gambler shuddered un-
der his furs and walked away, his mind
still teeming with thoughts of de-
spair, and more than ever returning
to the remembrance of the case of
pistols which awaited him in one of
his drawers; but after moving forward
a few steps, lie stopped suddenly be-
fore heartwringing sight.
On stone bench, placed according
to old custom near the door of man
sion, a little girl of six or seven years
of age, dressed in ragged black frock,
was sitting in the snow. She was sleep
ing, in spite of the cruel cold, in an
attitude of frightful fatigue and ex-
haustion; her poor little head and tiny
shoulder pressed as if they had sunk
into an angle of the wall, and reposing
on the icy stone. One of her wooden
shoes had fallen from her foot, which
hung help!essly and lugubriously be-
fore her.
With a mechanical gesture Lucien
put his hand to his waistcoat pocket,
but moment afterward he recollected
that he had not been able to find even
a forgotten piece of 20 sous, and had
been obliged to leave the club without
giving the customary "tip" to the club
attendant; yet, moved by an instructive
feeling of pity, he approached the little
girl, and might, perhaps, have taken
her in his arms, and given her a nights
lodging, when in the wooden shoe
which had slipped from her foot he
saw something glitter.
He stopped. 1t was gold coin.
Some charitable person, doubtless
some lady, had passed by, had seen on
this night the little wooden shoe lying
In front of the sleeping child. and, re-
calling the touching legend, had placed
there. with a secret hand magnificent
Offering, so that ibis poor abandoned
one might believe in presents made for
the infant Saviour and preserve, in
spite of her misfortune, some conf
dence and some hope in the s>aodness Of
Providence.
A gold piece! 1t was several days of
rest and riches for the beggar, and
Lucen was on the point of waking her
to tell her this, when he heard near
his ear, as in hallucination, a voice
the voice of the Pole, with its coarse,
drawing accent almost whispering:
cts now two days since stirred out
OF the club and for two days the
seventeen has never turned up. I'll
suffer my hand to be cut off if that