New Arabian Nights

by Robert Louis Stevenson
Contents:

The Suicide Club
The Rajah's Diamond

The Pavilion on the Links
A Lodging for the Night - a Story of Francis Villon

The Sire de Maletroit's Door
Providence and the Guitar

THE SUICIDE CLUB
STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE CREAM TARTS

During his residence in London, the accomplished Prince Florizel of
Bohemia gained the affection of all classes by the seduction of his

manner and by a well-considered generosity. He was a remarkable
man even by what was known of him; and that was but a small part of

what he actually did. Although of a placidtemper in ordinary
circumstances, and accustomed to take the world with as much

philosophy as any ploughman, the Prince of Bohemia was not without
a taste for ways of life more adventurous and eccentric than that

to which he was destined by his birth. Now and then, when he fell
into a low humour, when there was no laughable play to witness in

any of the London theatres, and when the season of the year was
unsuitable to those field sports in which he excelled all

competitors, he would summon his confidant and Master of the Horse,
Colonel Geraldine, and bid him prepare himself against an evening

ramble. The Master of the Horse was a young officer of a brave and
even temerarious disposition. He greeted the news with delight,

and hastened to make ready. Long practice and a varied
acquaintance of life had given him a singularfacility in disguise;

he could adapt not only his face and bearing, but his voice and
almost his thoughts, to those of any rank, character, or nation;

and in this way he diverted attention from the Prince, and
sometimes gained admission for the pair into strange societies.

The civil authorities were never taken into the secret of these
adventures; the imperturbable courage of the one and the ready

invention and chivalrousdevotion of the other had brought them
through a score of dangerous passes; and they grew in confidence as

time went on.
One evening in March they were driven by a sharp fall of sleet into

an Oyster Bar in the immediate neighbourhood of Leicester Square.
Colonel Geraldine was dressed and painted to represent a person

connected with the Press in reduced circumstances; while the Prince
had, as usual, travestied his appearance by the addition of false

whiskers and a pair of large adhesive eyebrows. These lent him a
shaggy and weather-beaten air, which, for one of his urbanity,

formed the most impenetrable disguise. Thus equipped, the
commander and his satellite sipped their brandy and soda in

security.
The bar was full of guests, male and female; but though more than

one of these offered to fall into talk with our adventurers, none
of them promised to grow interesting upon a nearer acquaintance.

There was nothing present but the lees of London and the
commonplace of disrespectability; and the Prince had already fallen

to yawning, and was beginning to grow weary of the whole excursion,
when the swing doors were pushed violently open, and a young man,

followed by a couple of commissionaires, entered the bar. Each of
the commissionaires carried a large dish of cream tarts under a

cover, which they at once removed; and the young man made the round
of the company, and pressed these confections upon every one's

acceptance with an exaggerated courtesy. Sometimes his offer was
laughingly accepted; sometimes it was firmly, or even harshly,

rejected. In these latter cases the new-comer always ate the tart
himself, with some more or less humorous commentary.

At last he accosted Prince Florizel.
"Sir," said he, with a profound obeisance, proffering the tart at

the same time between his thumb and forefinger, "will you so far
honour an entire stranger? I can answer for the quality of the

pastry, having eaten two dozen and three of them myself since five
o'clock."

"I am in the habit," replied the Prince, "of looking not so much to
the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered."

"The spirit, sir," returned the young man, with another bow, "is
one of mockery."

"Mockery?" repeated Florizel. "And whom do you propose to mock?"
"I am not here to expound my philosophy," replied the other, "but

to distribute these cream tarts. If I mention that I heartily
include myself in the ridicule of the transaction, I hope you will

consider honour satisfied and condescend. If not, you will
constrain me to eat my twenty-eighth, and I own to being weary of

the exercise."
"You touch me," said the Prince, "and I have all the will in the

world to rescue you from this dilemma, but upon one condition. If
my friend and I eat your cakes - for which we have neither of us

any natural inclination - we shall expect you to join us at supper
by way of recompense."

The young man seemed to reflect.
"I have still several dozen upon hand," he said at last; "and that

will make it necessary for me to visit several more bars before my
great affair is concluded. This will take some time; and if you

are hungry - "
The Prince interrupted him with a polite gesture.

"My friend and I will accompany you," he said; "for we have already
a deep interest in your very agreeable mode of passing an evening.

And now that the preliminaries of peace are settled, allow me to
sign the treaty for both."

And the Prince swallowed the tart with the best grace imaginable.
"It is delicious," said he.

"I perceive you are a connoisseur," replied the young man.
Colonel Geraldine likewise did honour to the pastry; and every one

in that bar having now either accepted or refused his delicacies,
the young man with the cream tarts led the way to another and

similar establishment. The two commissionaires, who seemed to have
grown accustomed to their absurdemployment, followed immediately

after; and the Prince and the Colonel brought up the rear, arm in
arm, and smiling to each other as they went. In this order the

company visited two other taverns, where scenes were enacted of a
like nature to that already described - some refusing, some

accepting, the favours of this vagabondhospitality, and the young
man himself eating each rejected tart.

On leaving the third saloon the young man counted his store. There
were but nine remaining, three in one tray and six in the other.

"Gentlemen," said he, addressing himself to his two new followers,
"I am unwilling to delay your supper. I am positively sure you

must be hungry. I feel that I owe you a special consideration.
And on this great day for me, when I am closing a career of folly

by my most conspicuously silly action, I wish to behave handsomely
to all who give me countenance. Gentlemen, you shall wait no

longer. Although my constitution is shattered by previous
excesses, at the risk of my life I liquidate the suspensory

condition."
With these words he crushed the nine remaining tarts into his

mouth, and swallowed them at a single movement each. Then, turning
to the commissionaires, he gave them a couple of sovereigns.

"I have to thank you," said be, "for your extraordinary patience."
And he dismissed them with a bow apiece. For some seconds he stood

looking at the purse from which he had just paid his assistants,
then, with a laugh, he tossed it into the middle of the street, and

signified his readiness for supper.
In a small French restaurant in Soho, which had enjoyed an

exaggerated reputation for some little while, but had already begun
to be forgotten, and in a private room up two pair of stairs, the

three companions made a very elegant supper, and drank three or
four bottles of champagne, talking the while upon indifferent

subjects. The young man was fluent and gay, but he laughed louder
than was natural in a person of politebreeding; his hands trembled

violently, and his voice took sudden and surprising inflections,