“Parbleu!” cried one, a fellow of infinite wealth; “but have you, then, no better use for your head than to make of it a battering-ram?”
“Sapristi!” replied the other, speaking in the coarse tones of an English mechanic out of work. “What matters it what I do with it? A moment more and I shall be in the Thames” (a large river corresponding to our Seine, and in equal demand by suicides). “To-night, for the first time in my life, I commit suicide!”
“Why, then,” said the other, “we will jump together, for it is for that purpose that I have come to this great bridge.”
“But,” said the mechanic, “why should you commit suicide? I can tell by the feeling of your garments that you are rich, and by the softness of your head that you are noble.”
“True, I am both of those things, but, also, I have exhausted every pleasure in life but the pleasure of suicide, and would now try that. But you, you are a mechanic out of work, as I can tell by your speech. Why should you seek pleasure instead of employment?”
“Alas, sir! I have at home one wife and seventeen children, all flaxen-haired, and all as poor as I. I cannot bear to go home to them without even the price of a biftek or a rosbif.”
“Come,” said the nobleman; “I will defer my sport for the night. I have never seen a starving family. It will furnish me with a new sensation.”
“Ah! but you have a kind heart, and I will not refuse you. The river will keep. Follow me.”
