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"Oh, Madjor and Madjor," said the Irishman; "Munsher D'Hemecourt, just say 'Madjor, heer's a gude wife fur ye, and I'll let the little serpent go."
"Madjor Shaughnessy!" cried M. D'Hemecourt, losing all self-control. "H-I am nod a cud-troad, Madjor Shaughnessy, h-an I 'ave a r-r-righd to wadge you." The Major rose from his chair. "What d'ye mean?" he asked vacantly, and then: "Look-ut here, Munsher D'Himecourt, one of uz is crazy. I say one" "No, sar-r-r!" cried the other, rising and clenching his trembling fist. "H-I am not crezzy.
"But," said the girl, shading her face from the lamp and speaking with some suddenness, "why have you not sent word to him by some other person?" M. D'Hemecourt looked up at his daughter a moment, and then smiled at his own simplicity. "Ah!" he said. "Certainly; and that is what I will run away, Pauline. There is Manuel, now, ahead of time!" A step was heard inside the café.
"You goth a heap-a thro-vle, Senor," said Manuel Mazaro, taking the seat so lately vacated. He had patted M. D'Hemecourt tenderly on the back and the old gentleman had flinched; hence the remark, to which there was no reply. "Was a bee crowth a' the Café the Réfugiés," continued the young man.
But, besides these, and many who need no mention, there were two in particular, around whom all the story of the Café des Exilés, of old M. D'Hemecourt and of Pauline, turns as on a double centre.
The company outside the door was somewhat thinner than common. M. D'Hemecourt was not among them, but was sitting in the room behind the café. The long table which the burial society used at their meetings extended across the apartment, and a lamp had been placed upon it. M. D'Hemecourt sat by the lamp. Opposite him was a chair, which seemed awaiting an expected occupant.
"He's r-right!" emphatically whispered Galahad. She attempted to draw back a step, but found herself against the shelves. M. D'Hemecourt had not answered. Mazaro spoke again. "Boat-a you canno' help-a, eh? I know, 'out-a she gettin' marry, eh?" Pauline trembled.
"No," said Mazaro, still endeavoring to smile through his agony; "z-was on'y tellin' Senor D'Hemecourt someteen z-was t-thrue." "And I tell ye," said Galahad, "ye'r a liur, and to be so kind an' get yersel' to the front stoop, as I'm desiruz o' kickin' ye before the crowd." "Madjor!" cried D'Hemecourt "Go," said Galahad, advancing a step toward the Cuban.
"Ye see, friends," said Galahad in a true Irish whisper, as M. D'Hemecourt left the apartment, "her poseetion has been a-growin' more and more embarrassin' daily, and the operaytions of our society were likely to make it wurse in the future; wherefore I have lately taken steps I say I tuke steps this morn to relieve the old gentleman's distresses and his daughter's" He paused.
Old M. D'Hemecourt, father of Pauline and host of the café, himself a refugee from San Domingo, was the cause at least the human cause of its opening.
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