.." (here he began to stagger and rotate before us)
"begins to fall ... falls, falls, all, all twenty-seven men--bricks--
planks--wheelbarrows--all--ten metres ... _zuhzuhzuhzuhzuhPOOM_!...
everybody hurt, everybody killed, not me, injured ... _oui
monsieur_"--and he smiled, rubbing his head foolishly. Twenty-seven men,
bricks, planks and wheelbarrows. Ten metres. Bricks and planks. Men and
wheelbarrows....
Also he told us, one night, in his gentle, crazy, shrugging voice, that
once upon a time he played the fiddle with a big woman in Alsace-Lorraine
for fifty francs a night; "_c'est la misere_"--adding quietly, "I can
play well, I can play anything, I can play _n'importe quoi_."
Which I suppose and guess I scarcely believed--until one afternoon a man
brought up a harmonica which he had purchased _en ville_; and the man
tried it; and everyone tried it; and it was perhaps the cheapest
instrument and the poorest that money can buy, even in the fair country
of France; and everyone was disgusted--but, about six o'clock in the
evening, a voice came from behind the last experimenter; a timid hasty
voice:
"_monsieur, monsieur, permettez?_"
the last experimenter turned and to his amazement saw Chaude Pisse the
Pole, whom everyone had (of course) forgotten.
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