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Pernette Examining His Pupils. Photo by V. Gribayédoff.

M. Pernette is the tophatted gentleman in the right foreground.

Source:
Outing magazine, vol. XLIII no. 3, December, 1903, p. 249.

Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 9

The Paris Cabman / 8

He unbuttoned his red waistcoast, easing his stomachic obesity.

"No there is little good to be said, little good. It's a dirty beast of a world and getting worse. We can see that by the tips. The Republic does not make folk generous – the contrary. Folk don't put their hands in their pockets as they used to in other days. And the ones who make the most fuss are the meanest. When a bourgeois says, 'Hurry along now,' I say to myself, 'Not much of a tip here,mon vieux,' and I'm never mistaken. In twenty years on the box I've met only one good 'un – one downright good bourgeois. I got him at the Palais de Justice. He was a soldierly old fellow, with a white mustache and an eye glass. With him was a young, haggard looking fellow, his son. 'Drive us home,' said the old bourgeois, 'and make the best speed you can.' So I sent Cocotte along. When my old bourgeois got out, he said, 'My boy has been acquitted and I want everyone to be happy to-day,' and he gave me one hundred francs – word of honor – a good blue note of one hundred francs.Ah, ma mère! he was a goodbourgeois! He was not like the fellow with the hair.

The hair story has to do with Pierre-Marie's fat bourgeois. He picked him up near the Porte Saint Martin one rainy day when he was driving a closed cab, and set him down near the Palais Royal. Two or three other passengers he had, and it was not until he was dusting out the fiacre about six o'clock, that he found the leathern pocketbook. In it were twelve hundred francs in paper money, new and true, the photograph of a woman and a long lock of brownish red hair. 'Twas a deal of money, that, and Pierre-Marie's mind, I dare say, rocked with temptation; but he was an honest man. He took his find to the commissary of police. The fat bourgeois made application for it, proved ownership and took it away, leaving word for Pierre-Marie to call at his place in the rue Valois for the reward. As he drove thitherward Pierre-Marie mused on the reward.