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As she put the question Madame Evans' voice softened. "No, Madame." "What is your father?" "A bookbinder, Madame" and the bookbinder's son blushed as he gave the answer. At that moment he would gladly have consented never to see his father more, his father whom he loved, if by the sacrifice he could have passed for the son of a Captain in the Navy or a Secretary of Embassy.
Not so his lame, tall wife, who often hit me with one of her crutches. She was the bane of my life. The bookbinder's wife was much younger than her husband and one of the things I often heard was that he was "crazy for her because she is his second wife," from which I inferred that second wives were loved far more than first ones.
"Did you look in every hole and corner for a torn envelope, a twisted scrap of paper, a car transfer, any mortal thing that might reveal why she went out and did not return?" "I told you of the bookbinder's note " "You sure did," broke in Clancy. "You also went to the bookbinder s'teen times. Are you certain there was nothing else?" "No I didn't like how could I peer and pry "
But his fears were soon allayed; Colonel Tudesco was only a wind-bag, and could not really arrest people. Besides, was it credible that Bargemont, head of a Ministerial Department, was still in Paris? And after all, if he did come to harm, well, so much the worse for him! Two days after a cab with a musket barrel protruding from either window stopped before the bookbinder's shop.
There were various benches against the walls between, one a bookbinder's; another a carpenter's; a third had a turning-lathe; a fourth had an iron vice fixed on it, and was evidently used for working in metal. Besides these, for it was a large room, there were several tables with chemical apparatus upon them, Florence-flasks, retorts, sand-baths, and such like; while in a corner stood a furnace.
Another time seeing her in a. morning gown of Turkish stuff, he declared she must be sitting for the picture of Rebecca in "Ivanhoe." In short, Mrs. Barkany very soon learned to anticipate her bookbinder's speeches, and would say, with a pretty smile: "Well, am I Esmeralda to-day?" or, "I wager that I am reminding you of the Duchess; tell me, am I right or not?"
"The sprained ankle he got when he fell off the folding-board is getting well, but the injury to his spine from the engine is more serious." "Ah! poor fellow!" said Forest, "he's just a little too reckless. How came he by the sprain?" "It was in the basement of a bookbinder's in Littleton Street," said Frank, lighting a cigar.
Roan leather is nothing but sheep-skin, stained or colored; basil or basan is sheepskin tanned in bark, while roan is tanned in sumac, and most of the so called moroccos are also sheep, ingeniously grained by a mechanical process. As all the manufactures in the world are full of "shoddy," or sham materials, the bookbinder's art affords no exception.
Now, a Parisian who would speak English without a dictionary is like a child without leading-strings; the ground trembles under him, and he stumbles at the first step. I run then to the bookbinder's, where I left my Johnson, who lives close by in the square. The door is half open; I hear low groans; I enter without knocking, and I see the bookbinder by the bedside of his fellow-lodger.
These young wives, as he watched them approach and pass on, were so many passing reminders of his Clotilde and made him feel sad without his quite understanding why, for he was not much given to thinking. Time slipped by, and little by little his dead wife grew to be a tender, vague memory in the bookbinder's mind.
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