He was so constantly called Le Capitaine that his real name was
seldom heard. It may however as well be known to us that this was
Theodore Campan. He was a tall, well-looking man; always dressed in
black garments, of a coarse description certainly, but scrupulously
clean and well brushed; of perhaps fifty years of age, and
conspicuous for the rigid uprightness of his back--and for a black
wooden leg.
This wooden leg was perhaps the most remarkable trait in his
character. It was always jet black, being painted, or polished, or
japanned, as occasion might require, by the hands of the capitaine
himself. It was longer than ordinary wooden legs, as indeed the
capitaine was longer than ordinary men; but nevertheless it never
seemed in any way to impede the rigid punctilious propriety of his
movements. It was never in his way as wooden legs usually are in the
way of their wearers. And then to render it more illustrious it had
round its middle, round the calf of the leg we may so say, a band of
bright brass which shone like burnished gold.
It had been the capitaine's custom, now for some years past, to
retire every evening at about seven o'clock into the sanctum
sanctorum of Madame Bauche's habitation, the dark little private
sitting-room in which she made out her bills and calculated her
profits, and there regale himself in her presence--and indeed at her
expense, for the items never appeared in the bill--with coffee and
cognac.
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