The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1916-02-12


he was never permitted candle. and
the darkness and loneliness made the
place one of haunted terror to the SEN
sitive and imaginative nature of the
growing child.
He soon learned an almost uncanny
cunning in the art of effacing himself
when she was imminent, to be as still
as death and to move with the silence
of wrath. Not infrequently his hud-
died immobility in a shadowy corner
escaped her notice as she passed. But
it exasperated her beyond measure to
look up. when she fancied herself
alone, and become aware of the wide
eyed. terrified stare of the transfxed
child.
That he was privileged to attend
school at all was wholly due to a great
fear that obsessed madame Of doing
anything to invite the interest of the
authorities She was an honest wom-
an, according to her lights. an honest
wife, and kept an honest house; but
she feared the gendarmerie more than
the wrath of God. And by ukase of
government a certain amount of edu-
cation was compulsory. So Marcel
learned, among other things, to read,
and thereby took his first blind step
| toward salvation.
Before Marcel was eleven he had
read LES Miserables" with intense ap-
| probation. His reading, however, was
not long confined to works in the
French language. Now and again
some departing guest would leave an
English moved in his room, and these
| Marcel treasured beyond all other
books; they seemed to him, in a way,
a part of his birthright. He called
himself, secretly, English in those
days, because he knew he wasn't
| French-that much, at least, he re-
membered And then some accident
threw his way a small English-French
dictionary. He was able to read Eng
lish before he could speak it.
Out of school hours a drudge and
scullion, the associate of solutions and
their immediate betters, drawn from
that caste of loose tongues and looser
morals which breeds servants for small
hotels, Marcel at eleven-as nearly as
his age can be computed-possess
comprehension of life at once exact,
exhaustive and appalling.
By fifteen he had developed into a
long, lank, 1outish youth, with face
| of extraordinary pallor, sullen
mouth, hot, black eyes, and dark hair
! like name, so seldom was it trimmed.
He looked considerably older than he
was, and the slightness of his body
was deceptive, Disgusting a power of
sinewy strength. More than this, he
could care very handily for himself
in a scrimmage-1a savate (fghting
with the feet) had no secrets from
him, and he had picked up tricks from
the Apaches quite as effectual as any
in the manual of jiujitsu.
Paris he knew as you and 1 know
the palms of our hands, and he could
converse with the precision of the
native-born in any one of the citys
several odd argots. To these accom-
plishments he added that of thor
oughly practiced petty thief
His duties were by day those OF
valet de chambre on the third floor
by night he acted as omnibus in the
restaurant. For these services he re
ceived no pay and less consideration
from his employers would have
been Mortified by an innuendo that
they countenanced slavery-only his
board and a bed in a room on the
ground floor at the back of the house
boasting a small window overlooking
a narrow alley.
He was routed out before daylight
and his working day ended, as rule
at ten in the evening-but once back
in his kennel, its door closed, Marcel
was free to squirm out of the window
and roam and range Paris at will And
it was thus that he came by most OF
his knowledge of the city.
But for the most part Marcel pre-
ferred to lie abed and read himself
half blind by the light of purloine6
candle-ends Books he borrowed as
of old from the rooms of guests Oh
else pilfered from quayside stalls
But now and again the guests would
pay further. if unconscious tribute
. | through the sly abstraction of small
coins. Your true Partisan, however
keeps track of his money to the ulti
| | mate sou, an idiosyncrasy which
} obliged the boy to practice most OF hi.
! populations on the fugitive guest o
, foreign extraction.
| In the number of these, perhaps
t the one best known to Troyon's wa
: Bourke.
He was a quick, compact, dangerou
/ little Irishman who had fallen into tn
r habit of resting" at Troyon's when
t ever vacation from London scenes