CHAPTER III
It was a silver ring with a curiously shaped cornelian, carved with hieroglyphics. It slipped easily on his finger.
"There," said the witch. "Now don't for pity sake wish for a trained elephant while you are in your room. It would be hard to get out."
"I won't." He held his hand up to look at the ring.
"You must act quickly."
"I see."
"Before noon Saturday next!"
This was Monday. Saturday seemed far away. Flecker smiled. "That will give me plenty of time!"
She smiled back. Perhaps she did not agree.
"At noon Saturday, then. Shall we meet here?"...
Walking slowly along the tall iron fence of the Luxembourg Gardens he scratched his red head and said words to himself. He did not remember until he stood before the door of his pension that he had forgotten to pay the check!
His room, up three twisting flights, was small and triangular. In one corner stood an easel, up to its thin knees in a disorder of canvas, paper, color-boxes. In another corner a small iron stove, in the third a narrow green bed. Here Flecker flung himself prone and let his thoughts go.
The motor bus rose high in the air and turned backwards slowly like something in an unpleasant dream. The mist lifted before a quick flood of sunlight. The witch placed her hand on his ... and laughed that strange, tender laugh because he said "I like you."
It would be simple enough, he thought, to decide what he wanted most in the world. He was careful at first, however, not to be serious, and he played with ideas of ridiculous, mad things he might do if the ring were as she said, embued with magic.
Suppose he wished for a Rolls-Royce? Flecker's imagination worked like a cinema lantern. He inserted the beginning of an idea, any idea at all, and watched it flicker—close-up, flash-back, fade-out, sub-title.
The Rolls-Royce was at the curb, huge and bright, waiting. He looked it all over, a little nervously, having never driven anything but a Ford.
"Very chic, isn't it?" commented the knock-kneed fellow who was the pension's concierge, shuffling out the door.
"It is mine," Spike said. "No, truly it is mine, sans blague!"
"You bought such a car!"
"A friend, a dear, very rich friend, gave it to me. I just this minute drove it up from the garage."
The concierge stole a suspicious glance at him out of red-rimmed eyes. "H-m-m."
A gendarme with square moustaches came up through the pavement.
"Do you know whose car this is?"
The concierge indicated Spike with his thumb. "M'sieu says it is his."
"Yes, it is mine."
"Well," said the gendarme, "you have no license plate, you're parked before a fire-hydrant, this is a south-bound one-way street and you are pointed north....
"Drive out of here!"
"I can't drive."
The concierge and the gendarme exchanged glances.
"How did you get it here?"
"Well," in desperation, "I wished for it. I turned a ring on my finger three times and wished!"
The gendarme took him firmly by the arm....
All right, Spike let the Rolls-Royce go. Suppose he turned the Eiffel Tower upside down?
... "Last night, Professor M-m-m-mb, the Eiffel Tower reversed its usual position and now stands upon its head!"
"Impossible!"
"It is not impossible. It is a fact. Look, here from your window!"
The Professor of physics looked, wiped his glasses, looked again and leaped from his chair, crying: "Nom de nom de nom de dieu!" banged his silk hat on his head and rushed out the door to call a Conference.
Spike felt sorry for the professor. What a useless hullabaloo, to be sure, what ugly confusion in the minds of people!
Spike began to wonder about disentangling from things an isolated thing. Wouldn't there nearly always be an afterward, a result, something incalculable for which he would be responsible? If he mischievously used black magic to turn the tower upside down the whole world might in some strange way be different—forever....
He thought of wishing for a journey to strange countries and sounded their romantic names in his imagination, but they did not stir his longing.
Stretched out on his narrow green bed he decided he preferred Paris. Water from his muddy shoes dripped into two little puddles on the red tile floor.
He considered a wine bottle that would never run dry, and was glad—having imaginatively gone adventuring with it—that he need not possess such a thing. He thought of a thousand other fantastic wishes. But he was careful not to be serious—yet. There was time to choose from among his real desires. Saturday noon was a long time away.
His room was filling with shadows. Holding his hand up before him he saw a strange thing. A white glow rayed out from the ring's cornelian. It dimmed and brightened in the rhythm of a heart beating.
He stood up and looked in his long mirror and saw the glow of the ring on his face. Until this moment he had not believed profoundly in the magic of the witch. He fumbled around for his brush and comb whispering expletives. "Oh, my gosh! Oh, gee whiz! Oh, gosh a' mighty."
His hair combed he peered out the window to see the clock on the School of St. Sulpice. It was after six. Flecker strained his eyes to read, as he had often read before, the inscription on the school's façade.
"Qui a Jesus a Tout."
The words now had for him a sad, lonely sound.
On the twisting stairs Flecker wondered if the witch might not be from Satan.