Simon the Jester

n Arden; the more fool I; when I w

; the more fool I;

it is true that the blue African sky and sunshine are more agreeable than Piccadilly fogs; but, after all, his own kennel is best for a dying dog, and his own familiar surroundings best for his declining hours. Again, Touchstone had not the faintest idea what he was going to d

ent there and it rained as I drove from my hotel to the Gare de Lyon. A cheery newspaper informed me that there were torrential rains at

rseilles I always eat bouillabaisse on the quay.

maginative exercise I prescribed; so he

eeks, her hair hangs dank and dishevelled, in her aspect is desolation, and moaning is in her voice. I have a Sultanesque feeling with regard to Paris. So long as she is amusing and gay I love her. I adore her mirth, her chatter, h

ered with suspicion that I might be taking a mental photograph of the office furniture in order to betray its secret to a foreign government. After many comings and goings of orderlies and underlings, he told me ver

I asked, "whereby I may obtain this essentia

in the regiment mi

he reg

de l'Armee Francaise, just as I

r at Tlemcen, another at Constantine, another at T

n, did Captain Vauvenar

he dossiers that the or

rd, Mo

nformation, the

tly, Mo

npopular even in organisations so far removed from the Circumlocution Office as

he Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment at Tlemcen, and wait for his reply. But eve

w-"that I'll never do. I'll proceed at once to Algiers. If I can get no news of him there, I'll go to Tlemcen

awning on the sunny quay at Marseilles. The torrential rains had ceased. I advised Rogers to take equivalent sustenance, as no lunch is provided on day of sailing by the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. I caught sight of him in a dark corner of the restaurant-he is

ng of the many swans that were geese, and Paradises that were building-plots, and heroes that were dummies, and solidities that were shadows, in short, enjoying a gentle post-prandial mood, when my eyes suddenly fell on a scene which brought me down from such realities to the realm of the fantastic. There, a few yards in front of me, at the outer edge of the terrace of a cafe, clad in his eternal silk hat, frock coat, and yellow gloves, sat Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos in earnest conversation with a seedy stranger

onsieur, je vous

ou to be seated, and do me the honour of joining me in

a's tale of the long knife which he

iquet-Monsieur de Gex, a great English statesman and

Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos moved a bundle of papers tied up

also knows Madame Br

ieur Saupiquet. "She

on his sharply. "W

umbled benea

is well," sai

last I had the pleasure of seeing

arsal. He has seen Hephaestus, and his tears have dropped in s

ivors," said I, "are enjo

and assistant, Quast, contains ex

tually kept his ridiculous word. He, too, had come south in search of the lost Captain Vauvenarde. We were companions in the Fool Adventure. There was something mediaeval in the combination; something legendary. Put back the

his pleasing fancy by remarking again that Mon

t the time of her

t?" I asked

orse S

I must confess to being tired of the horse Sul

id I, "doubtless offered

er and look after Sultan'

f the Horse,"

piquet is attached to a circus at present stationed in Toulon. He came over, at my request, to see me-on affair

et, who evidently did not co

uvenarde; but the dwarf's air of mystery forbade my asking for his confidence. Bes

usy man, Monsieu

ould have been a lawyer. I can spread nets that no one sees, and then-pst! I draw the rope and

. He seemed perfectly conversant

join the intellect of the man of affairs and the heart of a young poet.

and struck an attitude

you were of the same age as a be

down again, "is enthusiasm, the worship of a

is broken nose gave his face a singularly unintelligent expression. He poured out another glass of cognac from the g

dt owes me f

. And the carissima signora doesn't owe it to him. She can't owe it to him. Voyons, Saupiquet, if you don't renounce your miserable pretensions you will drive me mad, you will make me burst into tears, you will ma

table so that the glasses jingled. Sau

me fifteen sous, and until th

ke an angry cat's, showing his teeth. I shrank from meeting Saupiquet's

just remembered. Madame did mention to me an unaquitted debt in the South, and begged me to settle

nce grew suave

ma signora is the wo

n the table and pushed them over to Saupiquet,

an talk,"

of re-demanding the sum from Madame Brandt. He is an ingrate. And she, Monsieur le Membre du Parlement Anglais, has overwhelmed him with benefits

f Madame Brandt, and the turpitude of his friend Saupiquet, brought tears to t

n he can. It is only the rich wh

y watch and r

unceremonious leave of yo

or the receipt,"

e interpellation was addressed to a cabman a few yards away. "Your conversat

r bo

ing to A

, Monsieur? I ask in no sp

g hand, and with a s

terday afternoon," he said, "and

oming to-day, so that I could have the

hook hands with him and with the stolid Monsieur Saupiquet, and waving my hat more like an excited Montenegrin than the most respectable of British valetudinarians, I drove off t

You almost missed it. I couldn'

It is not that I dislike the little man, or have the Briton's nervous shrinking from being seen in eccentric society; but I wish to eliminate mediaevalism as far as possible from my q

ht, and all the next morning. He has haunted my brain ever since. I see him tossing his arms about in fury, while the broken-nosed Saupiquet makes his monotonous claim for the payment of sevenpence halfpenny; I hear him speak in broken whispers of the disastrous quadruped on whose skin and h

his quest? What revelation was he about to make on the payment of his fifteen sous? It is all so grotesque, so out of relation with ordinary life. I feel inclined to go up to the retired Colonels and

ss her as much as any of the friends I have left behind me in England. I cannot help the absurd fancy that her rich vitality helps me along. I have not been feeling quite so robust as