42.
Agénor left his chair, stretched his arms, and rubbed his eyes like someone emerging from a bad dream. "To work!" he said. Then he turned to Bécassine, and, in the gentle voice in which he expressed himself when not under the eye of his worse half, he asked, "Young miss, would you oblige me extremely by bringing me the work entitled Theory of Motion in Gasoline Engines? It is the seventh book in the twelfth pile on the floor, going away from the window." Bécassine counted twelve, then counted seven, and looked at the title of the book she came to. It was the very one he wanted. Astonished to see that the chief knew so thoroughly the apparent chaos of his office, she said, "That's better than anything I've seen from the card sharps at the fair in Clocher-les-Bécasses, where I come from." Amused, Agénor smiled, then got to work. Holding the book in one hand, and consulting it from time to time, he covered the blackboard with drawings and formulas.
In a stage whisper, Maubec said, "He'll spend the next hour with his chalk, working on his theory of motion. He's been at it for six months, it has been frightful, forgetting food, drink and sleep, without getting any closer to making those autos run. But what a brave man! It would be happier here without the colonel. Patience! She has no idea the trick that Maubec is cooking up for her. You'll see, young Bécassine, you'll see."
As was his way, he jumped without transition to another topic, and said, "Seeing as you have nothing to do, help me organize my files." He led her into the corner of the office reserved for his use. The clutter here was even greater than in the other parts of the room and, once more, Bécassine felt overwhelmed by the outpouring of paper. "What is all this?" she asked. "These are ministerial circulars. They come at the rate of ten or twenty a day. Here's the most recent arrival, number 5217." "And what do you do with them? Do you have read all that?" "Me and no other, that is, when I have the time. They go into files, like this." He took a handful of circulars, thrust them into a folder, and tied it up neatly. Following his example, Bécassine dove into the task of compiling government dossiers.
When she had finished, Maubec wrote URGENT on about half and stacked them on his desk. The rest he buried away in a filing cabinet. "These one," he explained, "it's no use bothering about, since they're not urgent."
43.
"And the others?" asked Bécassine. "The others, ah well, in eight days they'll cease to be urgent, and I'll put them in the cabinet too." Bécassine, charmed by the ingenuity of this procedure, looked admiringly at Maubec who, flattered, puffed himself up.
At that moment the peace of the office was shattered by the return of the colonel. "Chief," she shouted at her husband, "you will never become a military man! You have allowed the hour of the crank to pass by. Order the action!"
"Crank manoeuvre!" shouted in a voice as thunderous as he could make it. "Everybody outside. You too, Bécassine. And ...," now hesitantly, "... I ... I will shoot the slow ones!" The staff of the Ralep, all five of them, spilled into the street and lined up in front of five old autos. Each one took hold of a crank, and at word from the chief began to crank. "more strength, more speed," ordered Carmencita, pitilessly, if she perceived a slackening of effort. This manoeuvre was her invention. Ignorant of everything pertaining to automobiles, she knew only that starting one involved turning the crank. During the course of one stormy scene she had mandated that her husband turn the cranks each morning, in that hope that an engine might start, which it never did.
"Done," she finally deigned to command. She looked at Bécassine and declared, "You're here to make these autos run. If, after eight days, not one of them does, it's the firing squad. Is that not so, chief?" "But certainly," conceded Agénor, without conviction. Then, his wife at a safe distance, he resumed the attitude of a kind man and went back into his office. "Look at the life she makes us lead," said Maubec to his new friend. "It's frightful. But we'll be rid of her, and here's the man who will help with that."
The man he spoke of, looking like a vagabond, with a bushy beard, approached Maubec and said in hushed tones, "The investigation proceeds. There will soon be news." Then, noticing Bécassine, he gave her a long look and placed a finger over his lips. Our heroine watched him go off, asking herself what that mysterious sign meant, and where she might have met the man before, as it seemed to her that the figure was not unknown to her.
44.
After the cranking session, Maubec and Bécassine took a walk under the trees of the avenue. Our heroine felt as stiff as on the day, under the direction of Monsieur Bile, she had tried out physical culture. As she massaged her lower back, and stretched her arms and legs to restore their flexibility, she noticed a man approaching, who, as soon as he saw them, gave a smile to her companion and her, with an expression of extreme joy. He extended hands that were eager to grasp theirs. "Well met, Monsieur Dumarteau," offered Maubec. Monsieur Dumarteau redoubled his smile, made a bow worthy of the Versailles of Louis XV, and begged Monsieur and Mademoiselle to accept his humble regards.
Bécassine felt herself taken by a sudden sympathy for this man who was so polite and who had such fine manners. At his bow, she responded with one of her own, less graceful perhaps, but more profound all the same, and then she removed herself a little in order to preserve discretion. She heard Maubec say to the newcomer, "You came to see if we have any old autos to sell. Yes, there a dozen." Conversing in this way, the two men continued into the offices of the Ralep.
Bécassine, held back by her sense of discretion, remained outdoors. She went over to the old autos and considered a group of them that were more lamentably broken that the rest. She said in a quiet voice, "These must be the ones we're going to sell." "Precisely those," approved Monsieur Dumarteau, who at that moment stepped out of the office. "What insight!" he enthused, and his smile verged on ecstasy as if Bécassine had pronounced some truly welcome observation. Little used to stirring up sentiments of admiration, the brave girl blushed with pleasure. She responded with a bow nearly as low as the ground to his farewell salute, and her heart overflowed with gratitude for this delightful man.
It's time we presented him better to our readers. Monsieur Dumarteau is an auctioneer. He is always gracious, always with a smile, always approachable, he moves the most unpromising lots with the refined manner of a man of the world.
45.
He triumphs at the art object sales, where beautiful ladies and elegant art lovers congregate. He seemed to be penetrated by gratitude to whoever placed a bid, and whenever he pronounced the word Sold he accompanied it with an excited smile and an acknowledgemnt of the skilful bidding of the winner.
By luck, one of the smiles fell on Carmencita, the day that she wandered into the sales room and bought some of the cheap jewelry she fancies. She was immediately smitten. As at that moment the ministerial circular number 4885 had just come down, prescribing a sale every fifteen days of the autos deemed unusable, the colonel demanded of Agénor that the handling of it be done through the good offices of Monsieur Dumarteau. In this way he became official auctioneer of the Ralep.
Shortly after the departure of the smiling man, Maubec came out onto the avenue. He carried two large posters and the equipment for pasting them up. With the help of Bécassine he hung them in plain view on the wall of the building. There was a brief discussion between them because Bécassine, while trying to read the first poster, hung the second upside down.
But Maubec quickly repaired the mistake. Bécassine mixed with the passersby who stopped to read. With them she learned that the sale was to be by auction the next day at two in the afternoon by Monsieur Dumarteau. She promised herself not to miss that opportunity to meet up again with the sympathetic auctioneer. According herself a few more minutes break time, she observed the small group that, bit by bit, formed up in front of the posters. In the front rank she recognized a scrap metal dealer named Charrigou, whom she knew because in her tram days she used to pass his shop in the morning and evening, and they sometimes chatted. She asked him if he planned to make any purchases the next day. "Poshibly, Mademoijelle Bécashine," he responded in the most pure accent of Saint-Flour. "It depends on whether Fouillade pushes up the prishe." Fouillade is his compatriot, competitor, and next door neighbour. The two shopkeepers stand in their doorways and squabble for a good part of the work day. "He's shrewd, Fouillade," said Charrigou, "but I'm not foolish. I have a shkeme that I'll eshplain to the auctioneer tomorrow. You'll shee." He burst out in a great laugh, and Bécassine felt doubly the desire to assist at that sale, and see what scenes it produced.
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