AGE VINGT-QUATRE.
A wreath of yellow immortelles, tied to the crosspiece, was interwoven
with these spangled letters:
"R-E-G-R-E-T-S;"
and the solemn air of the old man seemed to evidence that they were not
meaningless.
The hunchback was Lees' principal creditor. He kept a small restaurant,
where the deceased had been supplied for two years, and his books showed
indebtedness of twenty-eight hundred francs, not a sou of which he
should ever receive. He could ill afford to lose the money, and had
known, indeed, that he should never be paid, a year previous to the
demise. But the friendlessness of the stranger had touched his heart.
Twice every day he sent up a basket of food, which was always returned
empty, and every Sunday climbed the long stairway with a bottle of the
best wine--but never once said, "Pay my bill."
Here he was at the last chapter of exile, still bearing his creditor's
cross.
"Give the young man's friends a lunch," he had said to the landlady: "I
will make it right;"--and in the cortege he was probably the only honest
mourner.
Not we, who know Frenchmen by caricature merely, as volatile, fickle,
deceitful, full of artifice, should sit in judgment upon them. He has
the least heart of all who thinks that there is not some heart
everywhere! The charity which tarrieth long and suffereth much wrong,
has been that of the Parisians of the Latin Quarter, during the American
war.
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