Fife player

“ This can be done by the backs as well as by the faces, for the cards in general use now by the gamblers can all be known by the backs, and a player will know by the backs where any particular card is dealt; and if he should not steal the honours, he can deal them to himself or his partner, by dealing off the second card instead of the top card, whenever the top card is one that he may want for himself; and if he should steal two of the honours out, he will hide the theft by dealing each player two cards twice ”

“ Then the child’s cry changed to impatience, to terror and at last to despair. It was Fifi. The mother was dead, but the child did not know it then. She had no one in the world that I could discover; so, when I was started for France in a cart—for I could not walk at all then—I brought Fifi with me. She was so light, her weight made no difference, and ate so little that she could live off my rations and there would still be enough left for me. When we got to Paris, I hired a little garret for her, in yonder tall old house where I live, and Fifi lives there still. ”

“ Fifi alone in her own room went into spasms of delight. Her freedom was close at hand—and soon, soon, she could return to that happy life of hard work and deep affection she had once known. When she slipped into bed, the hard lump was not in her mattress.
“Think,” she said to herself, lying awake in the dark, “of the good that hateful money will do now—of the poor children warmed and fed and clothed. Giving it away like this is not half so difficult as spending it on hats and gowns and monkeys, and I think I may reckon on getting back to the dear street of the Black Cat soon—very soon.” ”

“ To stand a chance, then, the player should never on any account stake until the ball is fairly in play.
The clever way in which the partitions are restored to their proper places is worthy of notice. After the ball has fallen into the desired place, but before the wheel has ceased to revolve, the roulette man places his hand, apparently with the intention of stopping the wheel, but in reality so as to make each partition, as it passes his finger, strike up against it. Those that have been pulled out are thus driven back again. ”

“ There was very nearly a mob in the street of the Black Cat, so many persons were drawn by curiosity to see Fifi. Fifi, peeping from her garret window, would have dearly liked to exhibit herself, but Duvernet, for once stern, refused to let her show so much as an eyelash, except to those who bought a ticket to see her at the theater, when she was to appear in her great part of the Roman maiden on the Thursday week, the very day she had fixed upon to marry Cartouche. ”

“ When the times comes for "crying the forfeits," as it is called, the player who has them sits in a chair, while another player, either blindfolded or hiding her eyes, kneels before her, the remaining players standing all around. The first player then holds up a forfeit, remarking, "I have a thing, and a very pretty thing. ”

“ Suddenly the wheels revolved, and Fifi felt herself seized unceremoniously by Cartouche, to keep her from falling to the ground.
“Do you know whom you were staring at so rudely?” he asked, as he stood Fifi on her feet, and the coach moved down the street, followed by the traveling chaises. “It was the Pope—Pius the Seventh, who has come to Paris to crown the Emperor; and proud enough the Pope ought to be at the Emperor’s asking him. But that’s no reason you should stare the old man out of countenance, and peer into his carriage as if you were an impudent grisette.” ”

“ They had a great many rehearsals at the theater, too, and Cartouche, as stage manager, had lost none of his strictness, and ordered Fifi about as peremptorily as if he were not to be married to her on Thursday. Fifi obeyed him very sweetly and had a new humility toward him.
All of their fellow actors showed them great [Pg 237] good-will—even Julie Campionet, who behaved in the most beautiful manner, considering what provocation Fifi had long given her. Everybody connected with the theater gave them a little present—poor and cheap enough, but rich in kindness. ”

“ Imagine the most correct young advocate in Paris taking Fifi’s shoes off, because she was tired! Louis would have let her die of fatigue before he [Pg 82] would have committed this horrid crime, as he conceived it.
So Fifi checked the ebullition that was rising in her, and kept her head and held her tongue. But when she was once alone in her own large, solemn room, fitter for a dowager duchess than for little Fifi, she poured out her soul in a letter to Cartouche—thus:
“Cartouche—Why haven’t you been to see me? ”

“ As she stood up, the picture she made—her face, half in glow half in shadow, the vivid life of her contrasting with the golden ruins of the walls—wrought with such ardour upon my imagination, that I felt that, if I failed in that moment to take advantage of the creative impulse its beauty awoke in me, I deserved to be writ down for ever more the emasculate cypher of her strictures. So very quietly I got out the block, pencils, and a handful of coloured crayons which I made it my constant practice to carry about with me.
“Fifine,” I said, “don’t move: stand just as you are. ”

“ A poplar or two hung above the river for foreground; there was hardly a ripple there to shake the pictured rushes; it was as lovely an impression of antique peace as I have ever encountered. Fifine, after we had passed it all, made a little gesture to me, and I came and sat by her side, when she stole her hand into mine. I thought I knew what was in her heart—something emotional, a little piteous, the sense of a loveliness spent and of doubts to come. I pressed the soft palm in reassurance.
And so at last—Paris. The benediction of the season remained with us to the end. ”

“ Fifi smiled and blushed more than ever, and remained silent until the Empress said, in her flute-like voice:
“Perhaps, Mademoiselle, you could not love him.”
“Your Majesty, I hated him,” answered Fifi, with the greatest earnestness. “He was the most correct [Pg 232] person and the greatest bore in the universe. Unlike Cartouche, he thought himself much too good for me, but was willing to take me on account of my hundred thousand francs. At first I tried to frighten him off.”
“How, Mademoiselle?” asked the Emperor, now laughing outright. ”

“ Fifi, sitting within, had no notion that Duvernet was on the same vehicle. She kept her veil down and behaved with the greatest propriety. She knew better than to wear any of her ridiculous finery in the presence of the Holy Father, and as she had got rid of the brown gown with the green spots, she wore a plain black gown and mantle which became her well, and she scarcely seemed like the same creature who had worn the yellow brocade robe and the striped satin cloak. ”

“ Fifi, you are not very old, but you are of the sort which does not change, and you will be Fifi as long as you live. You can not be happy away from Cartouche and the theater and Toto—unfeeling wretch that you are, to let Toto be torn from you! So the only thing to do is to return to love and work. If you spend all your money Louis Bourcet would not marry you to save your life, and then you can go back to the theater and make Cartouche marry you. ”

“ Cartouche had forgotten about the lottery ticket, but just as he was leaving, he remembered it and handed it to Fifi. At the sight of the numbers on it, Fifi shrieked:
“Take it away! Take it away! It will bring bad luck! Take it away!”
“I won’t,” replied Cartouche, “and do you, Fifi, take care of it. You may draw the hundred-thousand-franc prize in the lottery yet. Just as likely as not the prizes are put on the numbers that nobody would choose.” ”

“ He was elected M.P. for Banffshire in 1818, and made a lord in waiting in the following year, and he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Lord Fife on 27 April 1827, in which year he was also made a knight of the Thistle. He soon afterwards retired altogether to Scotland, where he lived at Duff House, Banffshire, much beloved by his tenantry and greatly interested in farming and cattle raising, and there he died, aged 80, on 9 March 1857. ”

“ The man who could “pinch” his own soul of buds, like a prize chrysanthemum, in order to develop one monstrous head, was always a fool to me. I prefer, improving upon Ancient Pistol, to make the world not only mine oyster, but my pepper, my Chablis, my feast of a hundred dishes from hors-d’œuvre to savoury; and so, if you like, the last decanter being drained, to sleep under the table. Most properly, Death is the only drunkard who never wakes with a headache.
Well, Fifine interested me; but Fifine was not my universe. ”

“ As soon as Fifi was established in Madame Bourcet’s apartment, Louis began to lay siege to her. Regularly every evening at eight o’clock, he arrived—to pay his respects to his aunt. Regularly did he propose to play a game of cribbage with Fifi: a dull and uninteresting game, which involved counting—and counting had always been a weak point with Fifi—she always counted her salary at too much, and her expenses at too little. ”

“ Then an inspiration came to her which brought her to a standstill.
“I must go to a monkey shop and buy a monkey—but—but I am afraid of monkeys. However—”—here Fifi felt an expansion of the soul—“when one loves, as I love Cartouche, one must be prepared for sacrifices. So I shall sacrifice myself. I shall buy a monkey.”
But it is easier to say one will buy a monkey than to buy one. Fifi walked on, pondering how to make this sublime sacrifice to her affections. ”

“ There was but one thing in the box that was not hers, and that was a wooden javelin which Cartouche had used with great effect in his part of the centurion of the Pretorian Guard. It was rather a commonplace looking javelin in the cold light of day, but Fifi held that, too, to her breast; it was those things that kept her from losing her mind; they made her feel that after all, the old life existed, and was not a nightmare, like the present. ”

“ Anyhow we had some difficulty in securing places at a table in a dark corner; but, once established, we prepared, after our custom, to enjoy ourselves thoroughly. And, lo! the first item on the menu was bouille-abaisse.
I crowed. “Tiens! The goal of our long romantic quest lies revealed to us at last. We are about to achieve our ideal; the spirit of abstract beauty offers to materialise before us. Eat of this ambrosia, my gossip, and count for its sake the toil well vindicated.”
Fifine laughed, rosily, but in her little sedate way. ”

“ She looked at me very oddly.
“You are a gentleman, Felix Dane,” she said.
“I may be the incomparable Bayard himself, Marion; but jealousy has denied me his reputation.”
“‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be,’ Felix” (it was her only concession to the old Marion) . “For the rest, she must not be known, of course, for whom she is. Call her simply Fifine.”
“And Madame Crussol and the others?”
“What does it matter? When she leaves you, it will be to resume herself—to disappear from all imaginary associations.” ”

“ It was obvious that the morning light had done nothing to reform that question of identification.
“They think you a connexion of mine, whom I am escorting to Paris at Marion’s request,” I went on. “You have nothing to do but uphold that fiction, and steer clear of all compromising details. Just hold your tongue about yourself, that is all. They go to-morrow.”
“Why should I do anything?” said Fifine. “They are not my friends.” ”

“ I say, Cartouche, how hard life is sometimes! Now, because Fifi is rich through the lottery ticket you bought her, you can never hope to marry her.”
“Oh, your Majesty, that could not have been in any event,” answered Cartouche, a dull red showing through his dark skin. “I am sixteen years older than Fifi, and I have a stiff leg, and although I make what is reckoned a good living for a man like me, it is not the sort of living for a notary’s daughter like Fifi. No, your Majesty; I love Fifi, but I never thought to make her my wife. She deserves a better man than I am.” ”

“ What should I do—what say? Nothing, I resolved, after I had thought it all well out; but just let things take their course. In masterly inactivity lay the solution of most problems of conduct.
Mademoiselle my sister, the landlady informed me, when presently I returned to the Hôtel, had wished me to be informed that she had retired to bed with a slight headache, and did not desire to be disturbed. So? Then she should not be disturbed by me. I was merely the looker-on in a quaint little game of cross-purposes.
Fifine was before me at the breakfast-table the next morning. ”

“ In England the adoption of the fife as a military instrument was due to the initiative of Henry VIII., who sent to Vienna for ten good drums and as many fifers. [8] Ralph Smith [9] gives rules for drummers and fifers who, in addition to the duty of giving signals in peace and war to the company, were expected to be brave, secret and ingenious, and masters of several languages, for they were oft sent to parley with the enemy and were entrusted with honourable but dangerous missions. In 1585 the drum and fife formed part of the furniture for war among the companies of the city of London. ”