Quelque superbe créature de la high-bichery qui traîne son domino à queue avec les airs souverains d’une marquise d’autrefois.—P. Mahalin.
Hirondeau, m. (tailors’), journeyman tailor who shifts from one employer to another. An allusion to the swallow, a migratory bird.
Hirondelle, f. (familiar), penny boat plying on the Seine; (popular) commercial traveller; journeyman tailor from the country temporarily established in Paris; hackney coachman; —— d’hiver, retailer of roasted chestnuts; —— de pont, vagrant who seeks a shelter at night under the arches of bridges; —— du bâtiment, mason from the country who comes yearly to work in Paris. (Thieves’) Une ——, variety of vagabond.
Les Hirondelles, les Romanichels hantaient, comme les taupes, l’intérieur de leurs souterrains insondables. Romanichels et Hirondelles venaient y dormir, souper et méditer leurs crimes.—Mémoires de Monsieur Claude.
Une —— de potence, a gendarme (obsolete).
Hisser (popular), to give a whistle call; —— un gandin. See [Gandin].
Histoires, f. pl. (general), menses. Termed also “affaires, cardinales, anglais.”
Homard, m. (popular), doorkeeper, or servant in red livery. (Military) spahis. The spahis, called also cavaliers rouges, are a crack corps of Arab cavalry commanded by French officers. There are now four regiments of spahis doing duty in Algeria or in Tonkin.
Homicide, m. See [Haleine].
Homme, m. (familiar), au sac, rich man, one who is “well ballasted.” Un —— affiche, a “sandwich” man, that is, a man bearing a back-and-front advertising board. Avoir son jeune ——, to be drunk, or “tight.” See [Pompette]. (Thieves’) Un —— de lettres, forger: —— de peine, old offender, “jail-bird.” (Printers’) Homme de bois, workman who repairs wooden fixtures of formes in a printing shop.