Then he would go home, and pat
Minesse, and fondle the violin.
"Ah, Minesse, dose new player! Not one bit can dey play. Such
tones, Minesse, such tones! All the time portemento, oh, so ver'
bad! Ah, mon chere violon, we can play." And he would play and
sing a romance, and smile tenderly to himself.
At first it used to be into the deuxiemes that M'sieu Fortier
went, into the front seats. But soon they were too expensive,
and after all, one could hear just as well in the fourth row as
in the first. After a while even the rear row of the deuxiemes
was too costly, and the little musician wended his way with the
plebeians around on Toulouse Street, and climbed the long,
tedious flight of stairs into the troisiemes. It makes no
difference to be one row higher. It was more to the liking,
after all. One felt more at home up here among the people. If
one was thirsty, one could drink a glass of wine or beer being
passed about by the libretto boys, and the music sounded just as
well.
But it happened one night that M'sieu could not even afford to
climb the Toulouse Street stairs. To be sure, there was yet
another gallery, the quatriemes, where the peanut boys went for a
dime, but M'sieu could not get down to that yet. So he stayed
outside until all the beautiful women in their warm wraps, a
bright-hued chattering throng, came down the grand staircase to
their carriages.
It was on one of these nights that Courcey and Martel found him
shivering at the corner.
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