THE EXTRA EIGHT DAYS

Léon Fornageot had lost his place as a notary’s clerk; he had been proud of his position, and really dressed the part. He always wore a frock-coat and a white tie; his short whiskers, too, cut English fashion, gave him, he thought, an air of dignity. But once out of work he fell to pieces very soon.

Madame Fornageot now dressed him and fed him, and did not forget to tell him so even when pouring out the glass of water for him, with which he had now to content himself. She was always reproaching him; in a crowd she did not hesitate to push him. He would turn on her: “Amelie! do not be brutal; I cannot be quicker than I am going; there is someone in front of me.” “Yes,” she would reply angrily, “there’s always someone in front of you.”

The rage of Madame Fornageot, with her spirit of economy, can be imagined when Grabiche, a cousin of her husband, presented himself one evening at seven o’clock and invited himself, if you please, to dinner. They had not met for twenty-five years. Young Grabiche then was fat and joyous, and used to sing songs in a café concert—naughty songs, disgusting songs, according to Madame Fornageot. “A pretty family yours!” she sighed afterwards to her husband.

But now here was a new Grabiche, a Grabiche of fifty-five years of age—fatter than ever, redder than ever, and under his right arm an immense paté and under his left a bottle. “We will have a jolly dinner,” he cried. “Uncle Cyprien gave me your address.”

Madame Fornageot smiled, because she had noticed that although the tweed suit of Grabiche showed marks of wear, still across his immense stomach there was a beautiful gold chain, and on one rather dirty finger a large diamond.

“Do you still sing at la Chaussée Clignancourt?” she asked.

“No!” cried Grabiche. “Oh no! It is the others now who sing for me.”

He explained that he had seen how the directors employed singers and got the chief profits for themselves, so after ten years of economy he bought an establishment of his own, “Le Cri Cri,” and baptized it “The Music-Hall des Rigolos” (those who mean to enjoy themselves). “Now, my children,” he added joyously, “I gather in my thirty thousand francs a year without any trouble.

“The essential is never to have any trouble. My father and mother gave me a salt mouth: I do not drink because I like it, but I drink because I am always thirsty. I live well and save nothing. I am not married and have no children—indeed, Fornageot, you are my only heir, and if I kick the bucket before you I will always leave you enough to drink to my health.... Do not shake that bottle, man, that’s good wine!”

After the dinner he took them to his music-hall: a dreadful clientèle—men without collars and women without any hats. The director put his relatives into a box, and the young fellows in the audience in front of them kept making fun of them, especially of Madame Fornageot, who had put on some little curls.

“They like to amuse themselves,” explained Grabiche. “They will not throw anything at you. I know them nearly all”; and suddenly noticing one of the guttersnipes who was making fun of Madame Fornageot’s head-dress, he cried:

“Look here, Calves-liver, you shut up or I will come and talk to you!”

In the entr’acte he took Léon Fornageot behind the scenes. They came immediately upon half-a-dozen women in every state of undress, three or four playing cards in a corner waiting for their turn.

Grabiche introduced them: “My English dancers: Rosa, Carmen, Bijou and Mélindie. Do not get up, my dears!—only a relation.” Fornageot bowed gravely to Monsieur Ernest, a comic, and Mademoiselle Laura Ponestier, who seemed to be able to walk about on her hands as easily as on her feet. He bowed also to Chung-Li, a Chinese juggler, who had the accent of Montmartre, and to the Kreitzer family, newly imported from Vienna.

Grabiche ordered drinks, and as soon as they came, “This is the life that pleases me,” he cried to Fornageot. “I change the entertainment every eight days, but whenever I find a little girl that I like, instead of sending her away I keep her a week longer—that is a little present I make to myself. She is like the manageress for a whole week, never more. Both my public and myself like change. At the end of a fortnight she must go: they can cry or groan, I pay no attention.

“That is why whenever I change the bill here they ask, ‘Who is going to get a week longer?’”

“Grabiche!” Fornageot cried reproachfully. “Grabiche!” But Grabiche did not even notice the moral reproach.

When they came back they found Madame Fornageot very vexed, troubled too, a little. She kept looking at her husband to see the effect that had been produced upon him. But Léon had his old air of a head clerk who was impenetrable. All he said was: “I was never behind the scenes before; it is all excellently arranged. The lady artistes were playing cards.”...

From this moment on, every Sunday Grabiche paid a visit to Fornageot. He always came provided with food and rich wine. Madame Fornageot was once able to recommend a sentimental song to him, and he always said afterwards she was born for the theatre because the sentimental song had a success.

One Sunday when Grabiche came Fornageot noticed that he was redder even than ordinary, and could not walk straight. Instead of wine, too, he had brought a bottle of old Cognac.

“I am not well,” he said. “I need to be screwed up a peg or two. I am going to watch you folk dine, and I shall just be content with a glass or two of old Cognac in which I dip a crust; that is my remedy for all ailments.”

“It would perhaps be better——” insinuated Léon Fornageot.

But Madame Fornageot cried: “Leave your cousin alone; he knows best what is good for him.”

“You are right,” cried Grabiche. “I am too well, my blood is too strong, that is the terrible part of it; but I’ll pour out a little of this Cognac. I have a sort of vertigo—a noise, too, a rumbling in my ears. I’ll have a glass of this Cognac and I shall be all right.”

The Fornageots noticed that the first three glasses turned him to violet instead of red, but Madame Fornageot helped the soup and they began to eat. Suddenly Grabiche put out his right hand and closed it in the air.

“The bottle is by your side,” cried Madame Fornageot. He tried to reply, but it ended in a sort of groan. His face became blue instead of violet, and he fell forward on the tablecloth.

“He is drunk!” cried Madame Fornageot.

He was dead....

There were long formalities, but at the end of three or four months, thanks to M. Fornageot’s training as a notary’s clerk, the couple came into possession of the Music-Hall des Rigolos and of about five thousand four hundred francs in cash. The music-hall was not easy to sell, but it was evident that with a little care it would bring in twenty or thirty thousand francs a year. It was a fortune for the Fornageots, and they did not hesitate to grasp it.

Madame Fornageot put herself before the cash-desk and engaged a strong man to turn out any riotous spectators, and Fornageot carried on the music-hall.

Monsieur Fornageot’s whiskers became more important than ever. He was always now in a frock-coat and perfectly new white tie. And before long his temptation came. There was a little Italian dancer whom he pinched as she passed him and who smiled so sweetly at him that he made up his mind he would follow the example of Grabiche and give her—an extra week.

But he found it difficult to tell Madame Fornageot, for Madame Fornageot now had put on great airs. She constantly wore her jewellery. He noticed, too, that she rouged her cheeks a little, and that she always put on artificial curls. But the charm of the Italian dancer was invincible. M. Fornageot determined to speak plainly. So the same evening he went to the cash-desk where Madame Fornageot was arranging all the moneys:

“That little lace necklet suits you, my dear,” he said; “I want to propose something——”

But Madame Fornageot interrupted him: “You know the tight-rope dancer, he is very successful; he has made a hit, and as it is the custom here, when the proprietor is content with the performance, I am determined to give him an extra eight days.”

M. Fornageot found nothing to say!

THE GREAT GAME