The Slaves of Paris, Émile Gaboriau [the two towers ebook .txt] 📗

was evidently giving the children a lesson. Tantaine at once guessed that this was Professor Poluche.

“Listen,” said he; “here, you Ascanie, play the chorus from the Château de Marguerite.” As he spoke he drew his bow across his instrument, while the little Savoyard did his best to imitate him, and in a squeaking voice, in nasal tone, he sang:

“Ah! great heavens, how fine and grand
Is the palace!”

“You young rascal!” cried Poluche. “Have I not bid you fifty times that at the word ‘palace’ you are to place your bow on the fourth chalkmark and draw it across? Begin again.”

Once again the boy commenced, but Poluche stopped him.

“I believe, you young villain, that you are doing it on purpose. Now, go through the whole chorus again; and if you do not do it right, look out for squalls.”

Poor Ascanie was so muddled that he forgot all his instructions. Without any appearance of anger, the professor took up the whip and administered half a dozen severe cuts across the bare legs of the child, whose shouts soon filled the room.

“When you are done howling,” remarked Poluche, “you can try again; and if you do not succeed, no supper for you tonight, my lad. Now, Giuseppe, it is your turn.”

Giuseppe, though younger than Ascanie, was a greater proficient on the instrument, and went through his task without a single mistake.

“Good!” said Poluche; “if you get on like that, you will soon be fit to go out. You would like that, I suppose?”

“Yes,” replied the delighted boy, “and I should like to bring in a few coppers too.”

But the Professor did not waste too much time in idle converse.

“It is your turn now, Fabio,” said he.

Fabio, a little mite of seven, with eyes black and sparkling as those of a dormouse, had just seen Tantaine in the doorway and pointed him out to the professor.

Poluche turned quickly round and found himself face to face with Tantaine, who had come quickly forward, his hat in his hand.

Had the professor seen an apparition, he could not have started more violently, for he did not like strangers.

“What do you want?” asked he.

“Reassure yourself, sir,” said Tantaine, after having for a few seconds enjoyed his evident terror; “I am the intimate friend of the gentleman who employs you, and have come here to discuss an important matter of business with him.”

Poluche breathed more freely.

“Take a chair, sir,” said he, offering the only one in the room. “My master will soon be here.”

But Daddy Tantaine refused the offer, saying that he did not wish to intrude, but would wait until the lesson was over.

“I have nearly finished,” remarked Poluche; “it is almost time to let these scamps have their soup.”

Then turning to his pupils, who had not dared to stir a limb, he said⁠—

“There, that is enough for today; you can go.”

The children did not hesitate for a moment, but tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get away, hoping, perhaps, that he might omit to execute certain threats that he had held out during the lesson. The hope was a vain one, for the equitable Poluche went to the head of the stairs and called out in a loud voice⁠—

“Mother Butor, you will give no soup to Monte and put Ravillet on half allowance.”

Tantaine was much interested, for the scene was an entirely new one.

The professor raised his eyes to heaven.

“Would,” said he, “that I might teach them the divine science as I would wish; but the master would not allow me; indeed, he would dismiss me if I attempted to do so.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Let me explain to you. You know that there are certain old women who, for a consideration, will train a linnet or a bullfinch to whistle any air?”

Tantaine, with all humility, confessed his ignorance of these matters.

“Well,” said the professor, “the only difference between those old women and myself is, that they teach birds and I boys; and I know which I had rather do.”

Tantaine pointed to the whip.

“And how about this?” asked he.

Poluche shrugged his shoulders.

“Put yourself in my place for a little while,” remarked he. “You see my master brings me all sorts of boys, and I have to cram music into them in the briefest period possible. Of course the child revolts, and I thrash him; but do not think he cares for this; the young imps thrive on blows. The only way that I can touch them is through their stomachs. I stop a quarter, a half, and sometimes the whole of their dinner. That fetches them, and you have no idea how a little starvation brings them on in music.”

Daddy Tantaine felt a cold shiver creep over him as he listened to this frank exposition of the professor’s mode of action.

“You can now understand,” remarked the professor, “how some airs become popular in Paris. I have forty pupils all trying the same thing. I am drilling them now in the Marguerite, and in a little time you will have nothing else in the streets.”

Poluche was proceeding to give Tantaine some further information, when a step was heard upon the stairs, and the professor remarked⁠—

“Here is the master; he never comes up here, because he is afraid of the stairs. You had better go down to him.”

XXII Diamond Cut Diamond

The ex-cook appeared before Tantaine in all his appalling vulgarity as the latter descended the stairs. The proprietor of the musical academy was a stout, red-faced man, with an insolent mouth and a cynical eye. He was gorgeously dressed, and wore a profusion of jewelry. He was much startled at seeing Tantaine, whom he knew to be the redoubtable Mascarin’s right-hand man. “A thousand thunders!” muttered he. “If these people have sent him here for me, I must take care what I am about,” and with a friendly smile he extended his hand to Tantaine.

“Glad to see you,” said he. “Now, what can I do for you, for I