Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1916-02-17
CHAPTER |.
Troyon's.

1FOm the DuSLle OF the adjacent 0Oul6-
wards of ST. German and ST. Michel
and in it's day was a restaurant IA
nous with a fame jealousy guarded
by a select circle Of patrons. It's
cooking was the best in Paris, its eel
lar second to none, its rates ridicu-
lousy reasonable; yet Baedeker knew
it not And In the wisdom of those
who did know this was well; it were
a pity to loose upon so excellent an
establishment those swarms of tour
lists that profane every temple of gas
tronomy on the right bank of the
Seine.
The. building was of three stories,
painted a dingy dTab, and trimmed
with dull-green shutters. The restau-
rant occupied almost all of the street
front Of the ground floor; blank, non
commital double doorway at one ex-
IRENE OF the plate-glass windows was
seldom open and even more seldom
noticed.
A medieval maze of corridors, long
and short, complicated by many unex-
pected steps and staircases and enig-
matte doors, running every which
way, and as a rule landing one in the
wrong room, linked together some
twoscore bedchambers There were
no salons or reception rooms, there
was never a bathroom, there wasn't
even running water aside from two
hallway taps, one to each story.
With such accommodations the
guests OF Troyon's were well content.
One did much as one pleased there,
providing ones bill was paid with toll
cradle regularity and the hand kept
supple that operated the Gordon in the
came from a tribe of innkeepers and
was liberal-minded; while as for
madame, his wife, she cared for moth
ing but pieces of gold.
To Troyon's on a wet winter night
in the year 1893 came the child who,
as man, was to call himself Michael
Lanyard. He must have been four or
five years old at that time; an age at
which consciousness is just begin
ming to recognize it's individuality and
memory registers with capricious ir-
regularity. He arrived at the hotel
in state Of excitement involving an
almost abnormal sensitiyeness to i'm
pressions; but that was soon drowned
deep in dreamless slumbeT of healthy
exhaustion; and when he came to
look back through haze of days, of
which each had made it's separate and
imperative demand upon his budding
emotions, he found his store OF mem
orfes strangely dulIed and disarticu-
late. And the child soon gave over
his instructive, but rather inconsecu-
tive, efforts to retrace his history
life at Troyon's furnished him with
compelling and oblitersting interests.
Madame saw to that
1t was madame who took charge of
the child when the strange man
dragged him crying from the cab
through a cold damp place gloomy
with shadows and upstairs to a warm.
bright a formidable body,
this madame, with cold eyes and
many hairy moles, who made odd
noises in her throat while she I'M
dressed the little boy with the man
standing by, noises meant to sound
compassionate and maternal, but, to
the child at least, hopelessly other
wise.
Then drowsiness stealing upon one
over pillow wet with tears-ob-
livion.
And madame it was who ruled with
iron hand the strange new world to
which the boy awakened.
The man was gone by morning, and
the child never saw him again; but
inasmuch as those about him under
stood no English and he no French,
1t was some time before he compre-
hended the false assurances of
madame that his father had gone on
a journey, but would presently return.
The child knew positively that the
man was not his father, but when he
was able to make this correction the
matter had faded into nsignificance-
life had become too painful to leave
tane; or inclination for the adjustment
ofa.such minor and incidental ques
lions as that of ones parentage.
The little boy soon learned to know
himself as Marcel, which wasn't his
name, and before long was unaware
he had ever worn another. AS he
grew older he became known as Mar
Gel Troyon; but by then he had for
gotten how to speak English.
1t was few days after his arrival
that the warm, bright bedchambel
was exchanged for a cold, dark closet
opening off madame's boudoir, a cup
board furnished with a rickety co,
and a broken chair, lacking any pro
vision for heat or light and ventilated
solely by a transom over the door; and
inasmuch as madame shared the
French horror of drafts and so kept
her boudoir Theoretically sealed nint
months of the year, the transom didn't
help matters much. But that closet
formed the boys sole refuge, il a pre-
carious one, through several years
there alone was he ever safe from
kicks and cuffs and seedlings FOL
faults beyond his comprehension; bu
he was never permitted a candle, ant
the darkness and loneliness made the
place one Of haunted terror to the sen
sitiye and imaginative nature of the
growing child
He soon learned an almost uncann!