Vois-tu le pingouin comme il s’allume? ... ça n’est rien, à la reprise je vas l’incendier.—E. Sue.
Pingouin maigre, small audience; —— gras, large audience.
Pingre, adj. (thieves’), poor, “quisby.”
Pioche, f. (freemasons’), fork; (popular) work, or “graft.” Se mettre à la ——, to set oneself to work. Tête de ——, blockhead, “cabbage-head.” (Thieves’) Une ——, a pickpocket, or “finger-smith.”
Piocher (barristers’), les larmes, to prepare a pathetic oration with a view to exciting the commiseration of the jury, and enlisting their sympathy in favour of the accused. There is an old joke about a barrister who, having undertaken to defend a scoundrel accused of murdering his own father and mother, wound up his speech by beseeching the jury to be merciful unto his client, on the plea of his being a “poor orphan left alone and unprotected in this wicked world.” The celebrated and truthful author of a recent diatribe on the manners and customs of the French, reproduces the story, presenting it to his readers as a striking but “genuine” specimen of the forensic eloquence in favour with John Bull’s neighbours! (Thieves’) Piocher, to carry on the business of a pickpocket, “to be on the cross.” See [Grinchir].
Piole, or piolle, f. (thieves’), house. The synonyms are, “cambuse, cassine, boîte, niche, kasbah, barraque, creux, bahut, baite, case, taule, taudion,” and, in the English slang, “diggings, ken, hangs-out, chat, crib,” &c. Piole, lodging-house, or “dossing-ken.”
Veux-tu venir prendre de la morfe et piausser avec mézière en une des pioles que tu m’as rouscaillées?—Le Jargon de l’Argot. (Will you come eat and sleep with me in one of the cribs which you were talking about?)
Piole, tavern, or “lush-crib;” —— blindée, fortress; —— à machabées, cemetery; —— de lartonnier, baker’s shop, or “mungarly casa.” The English cant term is a corruption of the Lingua Franca phrase for an eating-house. Mangiare, to eat, in Italian.
Pioller (popular and thieves’), to pay frequent visits to the wine-shop; to get the worse for liquor, to get “cut, or canon.”
Piollier, m. (popular and thieves’), landlord of a drinking-shop, “the boss of a lush-crib.”