Monsieur Jonquelle by Melville Davisson Post Page A

stands for the word to stop in your language and red is a danger warning.”
    â€œPrecisely,” cried the Prefect; “but what danger is there if one knows of the curve? And whystop when the road is open? Does one take on and discharge passengers at this point as he travels into Paris, like a bus to the Gare du Nord? There should be here the usual signal indicating a sharp descent on a curve—and they put up a thing like that! … Well, they shall hear from me—and soon!”
    He got out and tightened the brake band of his car with a heavy wrench, and the two men continued their journey. The brakes held now and the car swept down the long descent, sped away on the great road and presently entered Paris. On his way to the Place de l’Opéra the Prefect stopped before the Department of Highways.
    It was strange how completely the trivial incident of a roadmark had dispossessed the great matter upon which the Prefect had set out. His mind seemed emptied of it. Placarded on the walls of Paris were the beautiful lithographs of Mademoiselle Valzomova, this idol of the opera, whose conspicuous generosity had so tremendously impressed him, and he passed them with no sign.
    Moreover, by a curious ironical chance he carried into Paris this mean old man, in his dirty coat, that he might prey upon her. And yet this bitter ending to his pretentious endeavor was hidden from before his eyes—screened off by the petty error of an official of highways. By suchinconsequential incidents are the minds of mortals dominated!
    â€œA moment, Monsieur,” he said to the Viscount, bringing his car to the curb. “I wish to lay a complaint before the Department of Highways. Will you verify my statement?”
    â€œWith pleasure,” replied the old man, glad to be a gadfly on any withers; and the two entered the building.
    A grave man with a long lean face sat at a desk in the private office of the Department of Highways; and behind him, nosing in a ledger, stood a big Italian, with bristling, close-cropped hair. The Prefect began at once with his complaint. He had hardly got it explained when the man at the desk stopped him.
    â€œMonsieur,” he said, “do you make this charge from your own knowledge or at the information of another?”
    â€œI saw it myself,” replied the Prefect.
    â€œAnd I saw it too,” said the Viscount, stepping up before the desk.
    The official looked up.
    â€œAnd who are you?” he asked.
    â€œThe Viscount Macdougal, my fine sir,” snapped the old man.
    â€œAh!” said the official, taking up his pen. He turned abruptly from the Prefect as though hewere a person of no concern and addressed himself to the Englishman with grave courtesy.
    â€œMonsieur,” he said, “I shall be pleased to hear you.”
    He listened with the closest attention, as to a distinguished person whose every word was to be marked; and on a pad before him on the desk he wrote down precisely and with care the exact statement of the Viscount Macdougal.
    The big Italian, who had been deep in his ledger, now rose and came round the official’s desk. He stopped directly in front of the Viscount and slowly wagged his head.
    â€œSo,” he said, “you saw all this through your goggles!”
    â€œI did!” snapped the Viscount. “What of it?”
    The Italian did not reply; but abruptly in the quiet and gravity of the room he laughed. The Viscount turned on him in a fury.
    â€œWhy do you laugh, my fine fellow?” he snarled, his face turning livid.
    â€œI laugh,” replied the Italian, “because if the Viscount Macdougal saw a red letter on a black background through the goggles he now wears he saw it with his blind eye!”
    â€œMy blind eye!” cried the Viscount.
    â€œExactly,” replied the Italian—“your blind eye! You have a green lens over your good eyeand it is a principle of optics that red on a black field