[Illustration: "I FOUND BOTH TYRES HAD BEEN PUNCTURED IN A HUNDRED PLACES"]
Indeed, speaking from affectionate knowledge of the man, I can declare that the position in which he, like many a better man, had placed himself was intolerable. Other men of equal sensitiveness would have extricated themselves in a more commonplace fashion; but the dramatic appealed to my rascal, and he has often plumed himself on his calculated _coup de théâtre_ at the fork of the roads. He was delighted with it. Even now I sometimes think that Aristide Pujol will never grow up.
"There's one thing I don't understand," said I, "and that is your astonishing influence over the populace at Aigues-Mortes. You came upon them like a firework--a devil-among-the-tailors--and everybody, gendarmes and victim included, became as tame as sheep. How was it?"
He laughed. "I said you were my very old and dear friend and patron, a great English duke."
"I don't quite see how that explanation satisfied the pig-headed old gentleman whom I knocked down."
"Oh, that," said Aristide Pujol, with a look of indescribable drollery--"that was my old father."
Aristide Pujol bade me a sunny farewell at the door of the Hôtel du Luxembourg at Nîmes, and, valise in hand, darted off, in his impetuous fashion, across the Place de l'Esplanade. I felt something like a pang at the sight of his retreating figure, as, on his own confession, he had not a penny in the world. I wondered what he would do for food and lodging, to say nothing of tobacco, _apéritifs_, and other such necessaries of life. The idea of so gay a creature starving was abhorrent. Yet an invitation to stay as my guest at the hotel until he saw an opportunity of improving his financial situation he had courteously declined.
Early next morning I found him awaiting me in the lounge and smoking an excellent cigar. He explained that so dear a friend as myself ought to be the first to hear the glad tidings. Last evening, by the grace of Heaven, he had run across a bare acquaintance, a manufacturer of nougat at Montélimar; had spent several hours in his company, with the result that he had convinced him of two things: first, that the dry, crumbling, shortbread-like nougat of Montélimar was unknown in England, where the population subsisted on a sickly, glutinous mess whereto the medical faculty had ascribed the prevalent dyspepsia of the population; and, secondly, that the one Heaven-certified apostle who could spread the glorious gospel of Montélimar nougat over the length and breadth of Great Britain and Ireland was himself, Aristide Pujol. A handsome salary had been arranged, of which he had already drawn something on account--_hinc ille Colorado_--and he was to accompany his principal the next day to Montélimar, _en route_ for the conquest of Britain. In the meantime he was as free as the winds, and would devote the day to showing me the wonders of the town.