CHAPTER II

The two young men were conscious of a pleasant sensation of warmth as the door swung to behind them.

They found themselves in a narrow passage, and immediately to their left was a glass window like the window of a conciergerie, one panel of which was open and looked into a dingy office lit by a single gas jet. There was nothing in the office but a safe, a desk round the wall, and some high stools, while a cheap French clock ticked from a bracket upon the wall.

"At any rate, whoever they are, they have not gone," said Deschamps with satisfaction. "Now we shall be all right," and as he said it he rapped loudly with his knuckles upon the little counter in front of the glass partition. They waited for nearly half a minute, but there was no response. Finally Gregory took his walking stick and beat a tattoo upon the counter. The sound of his knocking had hardly died away when footsteps were heard in the distance. They grew nearer, and a door leading into the office behind the partition was pushed open, and a strange and rather startling figure entered.

This was a little man not more than four feet high, wearing a round black cap of alpaca, a green baize apron, and a huge circular pair of spectacles. His face was brown and shrivelled. A fine network of wrinkles was all over it, and beneath the alpaca cap were straggling locks of dingy white. The nose which supported the pair of grotesque horn spectacles was large and bird-like, the mouth below was innocent and kindly.

The little man, in short, looked exactly like the traditional toy or clock maker of Nuremberg in a comic opera, stepping clean off the stage to greet the new-comers.

He looked up at them with a courteous but inquiring glance as he turned up the gas jet and they saw him more clearly. Then, placing two soiled and wrinkled, but delicate and capable, hands upon the counter, he made an odd bow.

"Messieurs?" he said, in a thin, piping voice.

Deschamps raised his hat. "I am sorry to say that my friend and I have lost our way," he began. "The fog is very thick to-night, and it is growing thicker and thicker. We have come quite out of our route, and do not know where we are. We are trying to get to the Latin Quarter, where we live."

The little man raised his hands, and as he did so, both young men noticed how prehensile and delicate they were – the hands of a master workman.

"Mon Dieu!" he said, "but you are very far out of your way, indeed, gentlemen. This is the Rue Petite Louise. It is not a thoroughfare at all. It is only a cul-de-sac, which winds among the wood-yards. Between here and the Latin Quarter the district is very congested, and you might walk about all night in a fog like this unless you could find a taxi-cab."

"I am afraid there won't be any cabs abroad to-night in this part of Paris," Gregory broke in. "Well, we must just take our chance. I thank you very much, monsieur."

"But it is impossible!" the odd little creature said with a tiny shriek. "The hour is already late, gentlemen; the fog, as you say, grows thicker every moment. And, look you, on a night like this there will be all sorts of robbers abroad. It is most unsafe."

Deschamps shrugged his shoulders. "Doubtless," he said, "but there is nothing else for it."

The little man on the other side of the counter peered at them anxiously through his great round spectacles. "But, yes," he said, in a plaintive bleat, "if affairs call you home, monsieur – doubtless madame will be distressed – then, indeed you must go, but – "

Deschamps laughed. "No, we have no business; we have finished our work for the day, and we are not married; still – "

"The matter is settled," said the old gentleman, with a child-like smile. "You will do me the honour of coming into our workshop immediately. We have a fire there, soup, bread, and vin ordinaire are ready, and there is enough for all. My brother will be as pleased as I am to have the honour of offering you hospitality on such a night. No" – he waved his hands in reply to a murmur of protest from Deschamps – "we could not let you go. Stay with us until the morning, and we will do our best to make you comfortable as may be."

Eager, chirping and twittering like an excited bird, the odd, old fellow unlatched a half-door, pushed up the counter-flap and bowed them into the little office. In a moment they had passed through it into a long, narrow room with a high roof which seemed to be of glass.

The place was lit by a huge fire of coal and wood, which glowed in an open hearth, and by the side of it was a small forge. The red light streamed out in a mysterious radiance upon a workshop crowded with tools, long tables, stacks of rare and polished woods, and here and there an unfamiliar machine.

The only other light came from two candles stuck upon a bench in their own grease, and the whole effect was startlingly curious and unexpected. It was as picturesque as some carefully set scene upon the stage, and seemed utterly removed from the modern life of a great city. The red light of the fire left distant corners of the workshop in black, impenetrable shadow, making it seem of vast extent.

Around the fire, however, the half-circle of light it threw out showed everything with great distinctness.

Gregory and Deschamps looked round them with bewildered eyes, and then, simultaneously, they gasped.

Rising from an old oak chair, emerging from its depths rather, there came another little man towards them.

In every particular he was exactly like their guide. In that bizarre light, at any rate, hardly anyone could have told them apart, and as he stepped forward he peered at them through identical round spectacles.

"My brother, Edouard," said the old man who had welcomed them. "Edouard, these gentlemen have lost their way in the fog. They are very far from their home, and it would be dangerous for them to seek it to-night without a proper guide. I have accordingly asked them to come in, and begged of them to share our simple supper, and to wait till the fog goes."

"But I am enchanted!" said the second little man, settling his round alpaca cap upon his head and waving his right arm in an expressive pantomime of welcome. "But this is most fortunate, gentlemen. Supper is nearly ready; come to the fire. Charles and myself are delighted to be of service."

The sudden transition from bitter cold and the grey blanket of the fog to this extraordinary place bewildered both the engineers. It was almost as if they moved among the scenes of some fantastic dream, as they sat down upon a bench by the fire, removed their damp hats and overcoats, and looked around them.

Was this really modern Paris? Who were these two kindly, dwarf-like creatures who had welcomed them into this warm, secret place, which seemed like a cavern of the gnomes?

Suddenly Basil Gregory became conscious that "my brother Charles" was standing before him and speaking.

"We are the Carnet Frères," he was saying, "and twin brethren also! I noticed, monsieur, you were startled as Edouard came to greet you. And, naturellement, this old workshop of ours is something out of the ordinary way. But we have lived and worked here for twenty years, my brother and I – we have a sleeping-room at the back – and what we do for our living is a small and specialised branch of the wood-worker's trade, and we have the monopoly of it."

Basil bowed. "My comrade, Monsieur Emile Deschamps," he said. "I, myself am an Englishman, and my name is Gregory."

The hands of Brother Charles flickered in front of him. "But it is wonderful!" he said with the pleased surprise of a child with a new toy. "You are English to look at, monsieur. There is nothing of the Latin about you; and yet you speak French as well as I do."

"I have lived nearly all my life in Paris," Basil answered with a smile.

"That accounts for it," the other twittered. "And now I see Brother Edouard is preparing the meal. Mon Dieu, Edouard, how hungry these poor gentlemen must be!"

An iron pot was hooked over the fire – a steaming pot, a pot of fragrant promise. From it into stout china bowls Brother Edouard was ladleing thick brown soup.

Brother Charles wheeled round to the long work-bench and began to cut thick slices of bread, to rattle spoons, parade a somewhat dingy cruet, set flat-footed glasses by each bowl, and uncork two bottles of vin ordinaire.

Overflowing with hospitality and the most charming child-like excitement, the odd, bird-like hosts served the soup and poured out that cheap table-wine of Paris, which is exactly the colour of permanganate of potash and water.

Basil and Emile sat down without further ado, and for five minutes there was a happy silence. The pot-au-feu was rich and nourishing. The wine was exactly that to which the friends themselves were accustomed. The fog and the cold in the ridiculous, inhospitable outside world was quite forgotten, and it seemed as if some malignant fog-curtain in their own brains had now rolled up and disappeared.

The faces of the two young men lost their pinched and discontented look. Anxiety faded from their eyes, and as they passed their cigarette cases to their hosts, and four thin blue spirals of smoke rose out of the red light to be lost in the shadows of the roof, Basil Gregory and Emile Deschamps had lost all thought of care.

It seemed quite natural, perfectly in the order of things, to be sitting there with their fantastic and courteous entertainers in a strange, mediæval setting – two starving wayfarers upon a hillside, taken in to the cave of the kindly gnomes, or the workshop of beneficent magicians.

"Your cigarettes are of the best tobacco, monsieur," said Charles Carnet. "Au bon fumeur! My brother and I had expected to spend a lonely evening. Here's to the fortunate chance that brought us guests!"

He tossed off a thimbleful of the purple wine with a flourish.

"But I could wish, gentlemen," said his brother, "that we could have entertained you better, I am afraid we are old-fashioned in our ways, and prefer a simple menage. At any rate, there might have been more light upon the scene. The fire is all very well, but these two candles give hardly any illumination. As a rule, our workshop is lit with electric light, and we also use the current for our lathe. An hour ago, however, there was a 'fizz' and a 'spit' from that porcelain box there in the casing of the electric wires, and, behold! the light went and the lathe will not work. It has happened before, and we must now wait till to-morrow for the electrician to come from the works and put it right for us."

Basil Gregory laughed. "Fate hath many surprises, Monsieur Carnet," he said, "and surely we have been specially sent to your assistance to-night! My friend and I are both electrical engineers attached to the superintending station of the Société Générale at Mont Parnasse. I expect I know what has happened. And I shall be very much mistaken if I cannot put it right for you in two or three minutes."

The little gentlemen were on their feet in a second, chirping and twittering with pleasure.

"Tiens! Edouard," said Brother Charles, "we have been entertaining angels unawares!"

"You are right, Charles," said Brother Edouard. "Angels of light."

Gregory and Deschamps went to the opposite wall of the workshop, moving cautiously among the benches, litter of wood-blocks and tools. Deschamps held one of the candles while Gregory deftly unscrewed the round porcelain cap of the cut-out. It was as he suspected, and he pulled out the semi-circular china bridge from its brass clips and showed it to his hosts.

"It is quite simple," he said. "Between this brass screw and this, there is always a soft wire made of tin and lead – fusible metal, we call it. All the current which lights your lamps and runs your lathes passes through the insulated copper wires, but it has to pass through the little lead wire as well. From some reason or other the current gets too strong and might heat the wires and create a fire; the little lead wire strung on this half-circle melts with the heat, and the current is shut off. That was the spitting noise you heard."

He plunged his hand into a side pocket and withdrew a small coil of fuse wire, which every practical engineer carries, and a screwdriver. In half a minute he had fixed three inches of the soft lead wire into the bridge, and snapped the bridge into its place in the box.