pocket that morning
in order to prolong my excursion for a week or so. But next morning my
purse was empty, and 'our defeat was certain.' I had already identified
myself with Dumas' aspirations, so I returned to Sens by myself, but
overjoyed at having seen and spoken to this man of genius, who is richer
than all the millionnaires in the world put together, seeing that he
never troubles himself about paying, and has therefore no need to worry
about money. Three months afterwards, the printer at Joigny drew upon me
for a hundred francs for electioneering bills, which, of course, I could
not have ordered, but which draft I settled as joyfully as I had settled
the rest. I have preserved the draft with the boots; they are mementoes
of my first two days' friendship with my dear friend."

At the first blush, all this sounds very much as if we were dealing with
a mere Harold Skimpole, but no man was more unlike Dickens' creation
than Alexandre Dumas. M. du Chaffault described him rightly when he said
that he did not worry about money, not even his own. "My biographer,"
Dumas often said, "will not fail to point out that I was 'a panier
perce,'[9] neglecting, as a matter of course, to mention that, as a
rule, it was not I who made the holes."

[Footnote 9: Literally, a basket with holes in it;
figuratively, the term applied to irreclaimable
spendthrifts.--EDITOR.]

The biographers have not been quite so unjust as that. Unfortunately,
few of them knew Dumas intimately, and they were so intent upon
sketching the playwright and the novelist that they neglected the man.
They could have had the stories of Alexandra Dumas' improvidence with
regard to himself and his generosity to others for the asking from his
familiars. On the other hand, the latter have only told these stories in
a fragmentary way; a complete collection of them would be impossible,
for no one, not even Dumas himself, knew half the people whom he
befriended. In that very apartment of the Rue d'Amsterdam which I
mentioned just now, the board was free to any and every one who chose to
come in. Not once, but a score of times, have I heard Dumas ask, after
this or that man had left the table, "Who is he? what's his name?"
Whosoever came with, or at the tail, not of a friend, but of a simple
acquaintance, especially if the acquaintance happened to wear skirts,
was immediately invited to breakfast or dinner as the case might be.
Count de Cherv