Volume II Part 69 (1/2)
”I say, Amandine, if he knew that the other day Calabash made you take that handkerchief from the peddler's pack, when his back was turned!”
”Oh, Francois, do not speak of that!” said the poor child, whose eyes were filled with tears: ”brother Martial would love me no more. He would leave us all alone here.”
”Don't be afraid, I will not tell him,” he said, laughing.
”Oh, don't laugh at that. Francois; I am sorry enough; but I had to do it. Sister pinched me till the blood came, and then she looked at me so--so! and yet twice my heart failed me; I thought I could never do it. Finally, the peddler saw nothing, and sister kept the kerchief. If he had seen me, Francois, they would have put me in prison.”
”They did not see you; it is just the same as if you had not stolen.”
”You think so?”
”Of course!”
”And in prison, how unhappy one must be!”
”On the contrary.”
”How, Francois, on the contrary?”
”Look here! you know the big lame man who lives at Paris with Pere Micou; the man who sells for Nicholas; who keeps furnished lodgings, Pa.s.sage de la Bra.s.serie?”
”A big lame man?”
”Why, yes; who came here at the end of the autumn from Pere Micou, with a man with monkeys, and two women.”
”Oh, yes, yes; the lame man who spent so much money?”
”I think so; he paid for everybody.”
”Do you recollect the excursion on the water?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BRIGAND'S ATTACK ON HIS BROTHER]
”I went with them, and the man with the monkeys took his organ on board to have some music in the boat.”
”And then, at night, what fine fireworks they had, Francois!”
”Yes; and he was no miser: he gave me ten sous! He drank nothing but sealed wine; they had chickens at all their meals; they had at least eighty francs' worth.”
”As much as that, Francois?” ”Oh, yes.”
”He was very rich, then?”
”Not at all; what he spent was the money which he earned in prison, from whence he had just come.”
”He gained all that money in prison?”
”Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs left; that when all was gone, he would do some good job, and if they took him, he didn't care, because he would return to the prison and join his good friends there.”
”He wasn't afraid of the prison, then, Francois?”.