The Mysteries Of Paris Volume V Part 29

The new prisoner of whom we have spoken, and who was dressed in a gray blouse, with a cotton cap on his head, had attentively listened to and energetically applauded the scheme for punishing the reserve of Germain, even at the expense of his life. This individual, whose form betokened strength and power of no ordinary description, quitted the day-room with the rest of the prisoners without being noticed, and soon mingled with the different groups a.s.sembled in the courtyard to receive their rations, crowding around the persons employed in the distribution like so many hungry cormorants.

Each prisoner received a piece of the meat employed in making the day's soup, with about half a loaf of tolerably good bread. Such of the _detenus_ as possessed the means were allowed to purchase drink at the wineshop belonging to the prison, and even to go thither to regale themselves with their lush; while persons who, like Nicholas, had received provisions from their friends, generally made a sort of feast, to which they invited their most intimate acquaintances. The guests selected by the son of the executed felon upon the present occasion were the Skeleton, Barbillon, and, at the suggestion of the latter, Pique-Vinaigre, in order that good eating and drinking might quicken his talent for "storytelling."

The ham, hard boiled eggs, cheese, and delicate white bread, wrung from the forced generosity of Micou the receiver, were arranged most temptingly on a bench in the day-room, and the Skeleton prepared himself to do ample justice to the repast, without in the slightest degree disturbing his appet.i.te by the thoughts of the cold-blooded murder that was to follow it.

"Just go and see whether Pique-Vinaigre is coming, will you, my fine fellow?" cried he, addressing an individual who stood near him. "I tell you what it is, while I'm waiting to choke that stuck-up young fool they call Germain, I'm blowed if hunger and thirst won't choke me, if I have to dawdle about much longer. And here; don't forget to work old Frank up to do for the b.u.m-bailiff, so that we may kill two birds with one stone, as the saying is."

"Don't you be afraid, old Dead-Alive! If Frank don't make a stiff'un of the bailey, it won't be our fault, that you may take your oath of!" And, while uttering these words, Nicholas went forth from the day-room.

At this moment Maitre Boulard entered the yard, smoking a cigar, his hands buried in the pockets of his gray duffle dressing-gown, his peaked cap pulled down well over his ears, and a look of chuckling satisfaction upon his fat, full-blown countenance. He quickly espied Nicholas, who was busily occupied gazing around in search of Frank. That person was at that precise period of time busily occupied, in company with his friend Gros-Boiteux, in eating his dinner, and, from the position in which they sat on one of the benches, they perceived not the presence of the bailiff. Acting in implicit obedience to the directions given him by the Skeleton, directly Nicholas, from the corner of his eye, descried the approach of Maitre Boulard, he feigned entire ignorance of his vicinity, but made for the place where Frank and his companions were seated.

"How are you, my ticket?" inquired the bailiff of Nicholas.

"Bless me!" answered he; "I declare I didn't see you. I suppose you're like me, come out to take a sniff of fresh air and have your daily walk?"

"Why, that's about it. But I happen to have more reasons than one to-day; and I tell you how it is. But, first of all, catch hold of one of these cigars; they're deuced good ones. Come, don't be so missy and shy about it; take as many as you like. Hang it all, when men are shut up together in a place like this, they oughtn't to be stingy."

"You are very good, and so are your cigars. But you were saying you had several reasons for walking out to-day?"

"Well, and so I have. First and foremost, I don't feel as hungry as usual; so, thinks I, I'll go and look on while those chaps eat their dinner. Who knows but the sight of their jaws all working away together may screw me up a bit, and give me a relish against feeding-time?"

"A famous idea!" said Nicholas. "But if you really do want to see a couple of feeders, just draw this way. There!" added he, pointing to the bench on which Frank was sitting; "what do you think of a pair of grubbers like those? I should say we were better behind than before them, or they might even swallow us instead of those huge lumps of bread and cheese and onions so rapidly stowed away in their capacious jaws."

"Let's have a look at them!" said Maitre Boulard.

"Well, to be sure!" cried Nicholas, with feigned surprise; "I declare one of them is Gros-Boiteux!"

Gros-Boiteux and Frank both turned around at these words. Stupefied and speechless, the bailiff continued to gaze in utter amazement at the man he had so wronged, while, starting up with a sudden spring, Frank threw down the morsel he had been eating, and darting on Maitre Boulard, he seized him by the throat, exclaiming, "My money--my money; give me my money!"

"Hallo! Who are you? What do you mean? Hands off, or you'll strangle me!

I--"

"My money, I say!"

"My good man, only calm yourself and listen to reason!"

"No, not till you give me back my money. What, aren't you satisfied with having brought me here? Can you not restore me what you stole from me?"

"But I--I--I--never--"

"I tell you again, if I get sent to the galleys 'tis all along of you; for had you not taken my little all from me, I should not have been driven to the necessity of robbing others; I might have lived and died an honest man. You may be acquitted, you may escape the punishment you deserve, but, at least, you shall carry my marks away with you. Ha, ha!

You can come it grand, and swagger about here dressed up with your gold chains and trinkets, bought, no doubt, with the money of other poor devils who have been cheated by you as I have been. Take that for your pains--and that--that--and that! Now, have you had enough? No! Then here's for you again!"

"Help, help!" screamed the bailiff, as he rolled on the ground at Frank's feet, while his infuriated antagonist continued to belabour him with all his force.

The rest of the prisoners took little or no interest in this affray, but contented themselves with forming a circle around the two combatants, or rather the a.s.sailant and the a.s.sailed; for Maitre Boulard, frightened and out of breath, made not the slightest resistance, but contented himself with warding off his adversary's blows as well as he could.

Fortunately, the repeated cries of the poor maltreated bailiff reached the ears of one of the superintending officers, by whose intervention he was rescued from the rough hands of Frank. Pale, terrified, and almost speechless with terror, Maitre Boulard arose. One eye was wholly closed by the severe beating he had received, and without giving himself time to pick up his cap, he wildly cried, as he rushed towards the officer:

"Open the door! Let me out--let me out! I can't and I won't stay here another minute. Help, here! Help, help!"

"As for you," exclaimed the officer, grasping Frank by the collar, "do you come along with me before the governor. I know you'll catch it, too, for fighting; two days in the black-hole is the very least you'll get, I promise you."

"I've paid him off, at any rate," returned Frank; "and I don't care for the rest."

"I say," whispered Gros-Boiteux, while affecting to be merely helping to arrange his dress, "I say, you won't breathe a word of what's going to happen to the sneak, of course?"

"Oh, don't be afraid; 'tis just likely, had I been by, I might have stood up in his defence, because to kill a man in that manner is--hard--at least--and for such a trifle! But as for telling of it, or betraying you all--oh, no!"

"Now, then," called out the officer, "I say, are you coming or are you not?"

"That's all right!" said Nicholas. "We've got well rid of Frank and the bailiff, now let's go to work without further loss of time upon the sneak!"

As Frank was being led from the prison yard, Germain and Pique-Vinaigre entered it. It was scarcely possible to recognise Germain, for his. .h.i.therto melancholy and dejected countenance was radiant with joy and exulting happiness. He walked proudly erect, casting around him a look of certain and a.s.sured content; he knew himself to be beloved, and with that consciousness all the horrors of his prison seemed to disappear.

Pique-Vinaigre followed him with a timid, confused air, and, after much hesitation, at length plucked up sufficient courage to venture to address Germain, whose arm he gently touched, ere the intended victim had reached the group of prisoners, who, from a distance, were examining him with looks of deadly hatred. Spite of himself, Germain shuddered at thus being brought into contact with a person of Pique-Vinaigre's appearance, whose wretched person and ragged attire were ill-calculated to impress any one with a favourable opinion of him; but recollecting the earnest advice of Rigolette, and feeling altogether too happy himself to act with any want of benevolence, Germain stopped, and said to Pique-Vinaigre, in a gentle tone of voice:

"What do you want with me, my friend?"

"I want to thank you."

"For what?"

"For the kindness shown to my sister by the pretty young woman who visited you to-day."

"I really do not understand you," said Germain, much surprised.

"Well, then, I'll try and make you. Just now, when I was in the lodge of the prison, I saw the man who was on duty in the visitors' room a little while ago."

"Ah, yes, a very good-hearted sort of man, too. I recollect him well."

"It is not often you can apply that term to the gaolers of a prison, but the man I mean (Rousel is his name) is really deserving of being styled a kind, good-hearted man. So, all of a sudden, he whispers in my ear, 'I say, Pique-Vinaigre, my lad,' he says, 'do you know M. Germain?' 'Yes,'

says I, 'I do,' says I; 'he's the _bete noire_ of the prison yard.'"

Then suddenly interrupting himself, Pique-Vinaigre said to Germain, "I beg your pardon for calling you a _bete noire_. Don't, think anything of that, but listen to the end of my story."

"Oh, I'm listening; go on."

"'Yes,' says I, 'I know who you mean very well,' says I. 'You mean M.

Germain, the _bete noire_ of the prison yard.' 'And of you, too, I suppose?' said the officer, in a severe and serious manner. 'Oh, bless you,' says I, 'I am too good-natured, as well as too much of a coward, to venture to call any one disagreeable; and less M. Germain than any one else,' says I, 'for I don't see any harm in him, and other folks appear to me very cruel and unjust towards him.' 'That's all right, then,' answers the officer; 'and I can tell you that you are bound to side with M. Germain, for he has been very kind to you,' he says. 'To me?' says I; 'how do you mean?' 'Well,' he answers, 'I don't mean M.

Germain exactly, and it ain't to you altogether he's been kind; but still, for all that,' says Rousel, 'you are bound to show him your grat.i.tude.'"

"Try," said Germain, smilingly, "and make me understand what it is you do mean."

"That's precisely what I said to the officer. 'Speak more clearly,' I says. So then he makes answer, 'Why, it was not M. Germain, but the very pretty young person that was here just now to see him, who loaded your sister with all sorts of kindnesses. She overheard the poor thing telling you all her troubles; and directly as the creature went out, the charming young woman as come visiting to M. Germain went and offered to serve her in every way she could.'"

"Dear, good Rigolette!" murmured Germain, deeply affected by this little incident; "she said not one word to me of all this."

"'Well, to be sure!' I says to the officer; 'what a poor stupid goose I am!' 'You are quite right--you are!' M. Germain--leastways, his friend--has been good to me,--that is to say to my sister Jeanne, which is the same thing, only much more than if the favour had been done to myself."