From the day that The Young Pole emerged from _cabinot_ he was our
friend. The _blague_ had been at last knocked out of him, thanks to Un
Mangeur de Blanc, as the little Machine-Fixer expressively called The
Fighting Sheeney. Which _mangeur_, by the way (having been exonerated
from all blame by the more enlightened spectators of the unequal battle)
strode immediately and ferociously over to B. and me, a hideous grin
crackling upon the coarse surface of his mug, and demanded--hiking at the
front of his trousers--
"_Bon, eh? Bien fait, eh?_"
and a few days later asked us for money, even hinting that he would be
pleased to become our special protector. I think, as a matter of fact, we
"lent" him one-eighth of what he wanted (perhaps we lent him five cents)
in order to avoid trouble and get rid of him. At any rate, he didn't
bother us particularly afterwards; and if a nickel could accomplish that
a nickel should be proud of itself.
And always, through the falling greyness of the desolate Autumn, The Zulu
was beside us, or wrapped around a tree in the _cour_, or melting in a
post after tapping Mexique in a game of hide-and-seek, or suffering from
toothache--God, I wish I could see him expressing for us the wickedness
of toothache--or losing his shoes and finding them under Garibaldi's bed
(with a huge perpendicular wink which told tomes about Garibaldi's fatal
propensities for ownership), or marvelling silently at the power of _les
femmes a propos_ his young friend--who, occasionally resuming his former
bravado, would stand in the black evil rain with his white farm scarf
twined about him, singing as of old:
"_Je suis content
pour mettre dedans
suis pas presse
pour tirer
ah-la-la-la .
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