Part 219 (1/2)
”And people also.”
”But the fleas from a cat don't go after people.”
”That's not the trouble, dogs are dangerous. I remember one year when there were so many dogs that it was necessary to put it in the newspapers. That was at the time when there were at the Tuileries great sheep that drew the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you remember the King of Rome?”
”I liked the Duc de Bordeau better.”
”I knew Louis XVIII. I prefer Louis XVIII.”
”Meat is awfully dear, isn't it, Mother Patagon?”
”Ah! don't mention it, the butcher's shop is a horror. A horrible horror--one can't afford anything but the poor cuts nowadays.”
Here the rag-picker interposed:--
”Ladies, business is dull. The refuse heaps are miserable. No one throws anything away any more. They eat everything.”
”There are poorer people than you, la Vargouleme.”
”Ah, that's true,” replied the rag-picker, with deference, ”I have a profession.”
A pause succeeded, and the rag-picker, yielding to that necessity for boasting which lies at the bottom of man, added:--
”In the morning, on my return home, I pick over my basket, I sort my things. This makes heaps in my room. I put the rags in a basket, the cores and stalks in a bucket, the linen in my cupboard, the woollen stuff in my commode, the old papers in the corner of the window, the things that are good to eat in my bowl, the bits of gla.s.s in my fireplace, the old shoes behind my door, and the bones under my bed.”
Gavroche had stopped behind her and was listening.
”Old ladies,” said he, ”what do you mean by talking politics?”
He was a.s.sailed by a broadside, composed of a quadruple howl.
”Here's another rascal.”
”What's that he's got in his paddle? A pistol?”
”Well, I'd like to know what sort of a beggar's brat this is?”
”That sort of animal is never easy unless he's overturning the authorities.”
Gavroche disdainfully contented himself, by way of reprisal, with elevating the tip of his nose with his thumb and opening his hand wide.
The rag-picker cried:--
”You malicious, bare-pawed little wretch!”
The one who answered to the name of Patagon clapped her hands together in horror.
”There's going to be evil doings, that's certain. The errand-boy next door has a little pointed beard, I have seen him pa.s.s every day with a young person in a pink bonnet on his arm; to-day I saw him pa.s.s, and he had a gun on his arm. Mame Bacheux says, that last week there was a revolution at--at--at--where's the calf!--at Pontoise. And then, there you see him, that horrid scamp, with his pistol! It seems that the Celestins are full of pistols. What do you suppose the Government can do with good-for-nothings who don't know how to do anything but contrive ways of upsetting the world, when we had just begun to get a little quiet after all the misfortunes that have happened, good Lord! to that poor queen whom I saw pa.s.s in the tumbril! And all this is going to make tobacco dearer. It's infamous! And I shall certainly go to see him beheaded on the guillotine, the wretch!”