"Hush, not a word,--he is going to commit suicide," whispered Butscha,
sober as a judge, to La Briere as he made the gesture of a street boy
at Canalis's back. "Adieu, my chief!" he shouted, in stentorian tones,
"will you allow me to take a snooze in that kiosk down in the garden?"
"Make yourself at home," answered the poet.
Butscha, pursued by the laughter of the three servants of the
establishment, gained the kiosk by walking over the flower-beds and
round the vases with the perverse grace of an insect describing its
interminable zig-zags as it tries to get out of a closed window. When
he had clambered into the kiosk, and the servants had retired, he sat
down on a wooden bench and wallowed in the delights of his triumph. He
had completely fooled a great man; he had not only torn off his mask,
but he had made him untie the strings himself; and he laughed like an
author over his own play,--that is to say, with a true sense of the
immense value of his "vis comica."
"Men are tops!" he cried, "you've only to find the twine to wind 'em
up with. But I'm like my fellows," he added, presently. "I should
faint away if any one came and said to me 'Mademoiselle Modeste has
been thrown from her horse, and has broken her leg.
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