A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I'll live, and
a gentleman I'll die! It's my intent to be a gentleman. It's my game.
Death of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!' He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air: 'Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the company
of a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose
papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing
his boat (as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition
of other little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively
recognises my position, even by this light and in this place. It's well
done! By Heaven! I win, however the game goes.'
Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down.
'What's the hour now?' he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him, rather
difficult of association with merriment.
'A little half-hour after mid-day.' 'Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon.
Come! Shall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for I
shall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made
ready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor.' Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and
showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected.
'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan
gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss--Canton de
Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born
in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.'
His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the folds
of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion
and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he
was rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to
undergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a
person as John Baptist Cavalletto.
'Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I have
lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere. I
have been treated and respected as a gentleman universally. If you try
to prejudice me by making out that I have lived by my wits--how do
your lawyers live--your politicians--your intriguers--your men of the
Exchange?' He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it were a
witness to his gentility that had often done him good service before.