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Updated: May 12, 2025
Jean's letter to his gonzesse in Paris still safe in my little pocket under my belt. Ha, ha, by God, that's a good one on you, you Black Holster, you Very Black Holster. That's a good one. Glad I said good-bye to the cook. Why didn't I give Monsieur Auguste's little friend, the cordonnier, more than six francs for mending my shoes? He looked so injured.
I therefore held my tongue and determined to follow the proceedings closely, being not a little curious to observe how the judgment would be enforced. The parties had elected to have the proceedings taken in French. "Your name?" said the judge, as he studied the procès-verbal prepared by the procureur. "Jules F ." "Age?" "Cinquante-cinq." "Profession?" "Cordonnier." "Résidence?" "Rue d'Ypres 32."
The Wanderer crowed beautifully. Monsieur Auguste's bosom friend, le Cordonnier, uttered an astonishing: "Meeee-ooooooOW!" which provoked a tornado of laughter and some applause.
We have not a single shop in the whole handful of houses excepting the 'tabac et timbres' establishment where jalap and lollipops are sold likewise and one hovel, the owner of which calls himself, on its outside, 'Cordonnier': yet there is this 'Hotel' and an auberge or two serving to house travellers who are dismissed from the Convent at times inconvenient for reaching Grenoble; or so I suppose.
Not that Englishwomen en masse are not better-looking than the French, but that these last are so skilful in concealing defects, and revealing beauties by the appropriateness and good taste in their choice of dress, that even the plain cease to appear so; and many a woman looks piquant, if not pretty, at Paris, thanks to her modiste, her couturière, and her cordonnier, who, without their "artful aid," would be plain indeed.
That French name so correctly spelt, so elaborately accented, so beautifully finished in gold letters, which from their form, however, one would say that the cordonnier must have imported from England, was only visible to those favoured knights who were occasionally permitted to carry the shoes home in their pockets.
Once she had got a bonnet direct from Paris, which gave her ample opportunity of expressing a frequent opinion not favourable to the fabricators of a British article. She always took care that her shoes had within them the name of a French cordonnier; and her gloves were made to order in the Rue Du Bac, though usually bought and paid for in Tottenham Court Road."
Monsieur Auguste broke in, speaking, as I thought, Russian and in an instant he and the youth in puttees and the Unknowable's cigarette and the box and the Unknowable had disappeared through the crowd in the direction of Monsieur Auguste's paillasse, which was also the direction of the paillasse belonging to the Cordonnier as he was sometimes called a diminutive man with immense mustachios of his own who promenaded with Monsieur Auguste, speaking sometimes French but, as a general rule, Russian or Polish.
I had a little leather case constructed, in which to carry my manuscript, and this I had seen more than half completed on the Thursday afternoon. I strolled into the shop of the village cordonnier on Saturday morning to ask why it had not been delivered, and I found the man busy on a duplicate of it which he promised to deliver before the evening.
I am a fool, and I am going into the street, and I am going by myself with no planton into the little street of the little city of La Ferte Mace which is a little, a very little city in France, where once upon a time I used to catch water for an old man.... I have already shaken hands with the Cook, and with the cordonnier who has beautifully mended my shoes.
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