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Updated: May 4, 2025
They are greatly in demand at the dinner hour; you dine thirty feet up in the air, and your food is brought up by a rope and pulley. When M. Flamaran appeared on the platform he took off his hat, and leaned with both hands on the railing to give a look around. The attitude suggested a public speaker. His big gray head was conspicuous in the light of the setting sun.
You understand me when I say adoptive. I do not mean that there exists between us that legal bond in imitation of nature which is permitted by our codes 'adoptio imitatur naturam'; not that, but that I love her like a daughter Sidonie never having presented me with a daughter, nor with a son either, for that matter." A cry from Jupille interrupted M. Flamaran: "Can't you hear it rattle?"
You are quite right to love her, of course, of course I could not have understood your doing otherwise; but I must say this, my boy, that if you tarry too long, with her attractions, you know what will happen." "Yes, I ought to ask for her at once." "To be sure you ought." "Alas! Monsieur Flamaran, who is there that I can send on such a mission for me? You know that I am an orphan."
And I won't be refused no, damme, I won't!" He brought down his fist upon the table with a tremendous blow which made the glasses ring and the decanters stagger. "Coming!" cried a waiter from below, thinking he was summoned. "All right, my good fellow!" shouted M. Flamaran, leaning over the railings. "Don't trouble. I don't want anything."
"No, no, Jupille, I'm going to keep him," answered M. Flamaran; "I haven't uttered a syllable for three hours. I must let myself out a little. We will fish side by side, and chat." "As you please, Monsieur Flamaran; but I don't call that fishing." He handed me the implement, and sadly went his way.
At home he may be seen at his window tending his canaries, which, he says, is no change of occupation. To get to his house I have only to go by my favorite road through the Luxembourg. I am soon at his door. "Is Monsieur Flamaran at home?" The old servant who opened the door eyed me solemnly. Their respects, indeed! They would bore him to death if he had to see them all.
Anyhow, it's quite off now. But it was no slight shock, I can tell you; and it gave me great pain to witness the poor child's sufferings." "You are so kind-hearted, Monsieur Flamaran!" "It's not that, Mouillard; but I have known Jeanne ever since she was born. I watched her grow up, and I loved her when she was still a little mite; she's as good as my adoptive daughter.
The whole population of Juan Fernandez was staring up at Flamaran without in the least knowing the reason why. "Gentlemen," said a voice from an arbor, "Professor Flamaran will now begin his lecture." A chorus of shouts and laughter rose around our tree. "Hi, old boy, wait till we're gone!" "Ladies, he will discourse to you on the law of husband and wife!" "No, on the foreclosure of mortgages!"
But the happiest, the most radiant, next to ourselves, were the people who came only for Jeanne's sake and mine; Sylvestre Lampron, painter-in-ordinary to Mademoiselle Charnot, bringing his pretty sketch as a wedding-present; M. Flamaran and Sidonie; Jupille, who wept as he used to "thirty years ago;" and M. and Madame Plumet, who took it in turns to carry their white-robed infant.
He opened his broad mouth with a smile of fatherly humor, and the groves, attentive, heard him thunder forth these words: "Boys, I promise to give you all white marks if you let me dine in peace!" The last words were lost in a roar of applause. "Three cheers for old Flamaran!"
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