No More Learning

A sign,
consisting of a vast folio, swung before the entrance. On one side of
the volume was painted a bottle; on the reverse a pate. On the back
were visible in large letters Oeuvres de Bon-Bon. Thus was delicately
shadowed forth the two-fold occupation of the proprietor.

Upon stepping over the threshold, the whole interior of the building
presented itself to view. A long, low-pitched room, of antique
construction, was indeed all the accommodation afforded by the Cafe. In
a corner of the apartment stood the bed of the metaphysician. An army
of curtains, together with a canopy a la Grecque, gave it an air at once
classic and comfortable. In the corner diagonary opposite, appeared,
in direct family communion, the properties of the kitchen and the
bibliotheque. A dish of polemics stood peacefully upon the dresser.
Here lay an ovenful of the latest ethics--there a kettle of dudecimo
melanges. Volumes of German morality were hand and glove with
the gridiron--a toasting-fork might be discovered by the side of
Eusebius--Plato reclined at his ease in the frying-pan--and contemporary
manuscripts were filed away upon the spit.

In other respects the Cafe de Bon-Bon might be said to differ little
from the usual restaurants of the period. A fireplace yawned opposite
the door. On the right of the fireplace an open cupboard displayed a
formidable array of labelled bottles.
It was here, about twelve o'clock one night during the severe winter
the comments of his neighbours upon his singular propensity--that Pierre
Bon-Bon, I say, having turned them all out of his house, locked the door
upon them with an oath, and betook himself in no very pacific mood to
the comforts of a leather-bottomed arm-chair, and a fire of blazing
fagots.

It was one of those terrific nights which are only met with once or
twice during a century. It snowed fiercely, and the house tottered to
its centre with the floods of wind that, rushing through the crannies
in the wall, and pouring impetuously down the chimney, shook awfully the
curtains of the philosopher's bed, and disorganized the economy of his
pate-pans and papers. The huge folio sign that swung without, exposed to
the fury of the tempest, creaked ominously, and gave out a moaning sound
from its stanchions of solid oak.

It was in no placid temper, I say, that the metaphysician drew up his
chair to its customary station by the hearth. Many circumstances of a
perplexing nature had occurred during the day, to disturb the serenity
of his meditations. In attempting des oeufs a la Princesse, he had
unfortunately perpetrated an omelette a la Reine; the discovery of a
principle in ethics had been frustrated by the overturning of a stew;
and last, not least, he had been thwarted in one of those admirable
bargains which he at all times took such especial delight in bringing
to a successful termination. But in the chafing of his mind at these
unaccountable vicissitudes, there did not fail to be mingled some degree
of that nervous anxiety which the fury of a boisterous night is so well
calculated to produce. Whistling to his more immediate vicinity the
large black water-dog we have spoken of before, and settling himself
uneasily in his chair, he could not help casting a wary and unquiet eye
toward those distant recesses of the apartment whose inexorable shadows
not even the red firelight itself could more than partially succeed in
overcoming. Having completed a scrutiny whose exact purpose was perhaps
unintelligible to himself, he drew close to his seat a small table
covered with books and papers, and soon became absorbed in the task
of retouching a voluminous manuscript, intended for publication on the
morrow.

He had been thus occupied for some minutes when "I am in no hurry,
Monsieur Bon-Bon," suddenly whispered a whining voice in the apartment.

"The devil! " ejaculated our hero, starting to his feet, overturning the
table at his side, and staring around him in astonishment.

"Very true," calmly replied the voice.

"Very true! --what is very true?