Whether the gendarmes
were stationed here to keep the Apaches from preying on the marketmen
or the marketmen from preying on the Apaches I know not; but having
subsequently purchased some fresh fruit in that selfsame market I
should say now that if anybody about the premises needed police
protection it was the Apaches. My money would be on the marketmen
every time.
Beyond the couchant gendarmes we traversed a low, winding passage
cut out of stone and so came at length to what seemingly had
originally been a winevault, hollowed out far down beneath the
foundations of the building. The ceiling was so low that a tall
man must stoop to avoid knocking his head off. The place was full
of smells that had crawled in a couple of hundred years before and
had died without benefit of clergy, and had remained there ever
since. For its chief item of furniture the cavern had a wicked
old piano, with its lid missing, so that its yellowed teeth showed
in a perpetual snarl. I judged some of its most important vital
organs were missing too - after I heard it played. On the walls
were inscribed such words as naughty little boys write on schoolhouse
fences in this country, and more examples of this pleasing brand
of literature were carved on the whittled oak benches and the
rickety wooden stools. So much for the physical furbishings.
By rights - by all the hallowed rules and precedents of the American
vaudeville stage! - the denizens of this cozy retreat in the bowels
of the earth should have been wearing high-waisted baggy velvet
trousers and drinking absinthe out of large flagons, and stabbing
one another between the shoulder blades, and ever and anon, in the
mystic mazes of the dance, playing crack-the-whip with the necks
and heels of their adoring lady friends; but such was not found
to be the case. In all these essential and traditional regards
the assembled Innocents were as poignantly disappointing as the
costers of London had proved themselves.
According to all the printed information on the subject the London
coster wears clothes covered up with pearl buttons and spends his
time swapping ready repartee with his Donah or his Dinah. The
costers I saw were barren of pearl buttons and silent of speech;
and almost invariably they had left their Donahs at home. Similarly
these gentlemen habitues of the Cave of the Innocents wore few or
no velvet pants, and guzzled little or none of the absinthe. Their
favorite tipple appeared to be beer; and their female companions
snuggled closely beside them.
