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The curiosities, the pictures, belong to old Schwalbach, who sends his customers there and makes them pay double price, because a man doesn't haggle when he thinks he is buying from a marquis, an amateur.
The change was very grateful to patient Jane, who had borne many small slights in proud silence; but it was soon over, for the parties separated, and our friends left the city far behind them, as they crossed the channel, and sailed up the Rhine to Schwalbach, where Mrs. Homer was to try the steel springs for her rheumatism while the Professor rested after his London labors.
On one side the Work of Bethlehem, a powerful machine, pumping at regular intervals, with tremendous energy; the Caisse Territoriale, with marvellous power of suction, indefatigable in its operation, with triple and quadruple action, of several thousand horse-power; and the Schwalbach pump, and the Bois-l'Héry pump, and how many more; some of enormous size, making a great noise, with audacious pistons, others more quiet and reserved, with tiny valves, bearings skilfully oiled toy-pumps as delicately constructed as the probosces of insects whose thirst causes stings, and which deposit poison on the spot from which they suck their life; but all working with the same unanimity, and fatally certain to cause, if not an absolute drought, at all events a serious lowering of the level.
Schwalbach did not speak, contenting himself with gazing around him through his enormous monocle, shaped like a hand magnifying-glass, and with smiling in his beard over the singular neighbours made by this unique assembly.
For a week or two she appeared to rally, then again every exertion became too much for her, every stimulating remedy to exhaust her. She was ordered from Frankfort to try the baths and mineral waters of Schwalbach, but without success.
"I'll tuck in my old hat to keep all steady; the girls will like it when they dress up, and I'm fond of it, because it recalls some of my happiest days," said Jenny, as she took up the well-worn hat and began to dust it. A shower of grain dropped into her hand, for the yellow wheat still kept its place and recalled the chat at Schwalbach.
On the boulevard the next day they said five millions, and everybody cried out on the scandal, especially the Messenger, three-quarters filled by an article against certain adventurers tolerated in the clubs, and who cause the ruin of the most honourable families. Alas! what Jansoulet had won hardly represented enough to meet the first Schwalbach bills.
There was not one among the ordinary habitués of the house who was not a suspicious character, not one who came there for any other purpose than to steal or lie. From attic to cellar, pillage and waste. Bois-l'Héry's horses were unsound, the Schwalbach gallery a fraud, Moëssard's articles notorious blackmail.
There is the parish priest from the country who demands funds for the restoration of his church, and takes checks by assault with the brutality of a Peter the Hermit. There is old Schwalbach coming up with nose in his beard and winking mysteriously. "Sh! He had found a pearl for monsieur's gallery, an Hobbema from the collection of the Duc de Mora. But several people are after it.
Seated next this pontiff, with a black neck-band, old Schwalbach, the famous picture-dealer, displayed his prophet's beard, tawny in places like a dirty fleece, his three overcoats tinged by mildew, all that loose and negligent attire for which he was excused in the name of art, and because, in a time when the mania for picture galleries had already begun to cause millions to change hands, it was the proper thing to entertain the man who was the best placed for the conduct of these absurdly vain transactions.
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