"And these hooks—will you put your neck between them?" asked Skeleton, opening his long fingers, hard as iron.
"Choke him?"
"A little."
"But if they know it is you?"
"What's the odds? Am I a calf with two heads, such as is shown in the fair?"
"That is true. One can only be made a head shorter once; and since you are sure of being—"
"Doubly sure; the lawyer told me so yesterday. I have been taken with my hand in the pocket, and my knife in the throat, of the stiff 'un; I am a second comer; it is all over with me. I will send my head to see, in the basket, if it is true that they cheat the condemned, and put sawdust in, instead of bran, which the government allows us."
"It is true; the guillotined has a right to his bran. My father was cheated, I recollect," said Nicholas Martial, with a ferocious chuckle.
This abominable pleasantry made all the prisoners laugh loudly.
"A thousand thunders!" cried Skeleton. "I wish all the nobs could hear us talk, who think to make us quake before the guillotine. They have only to come to the Barrière Saint Jacques the day of my benefit; they will hear me crack jokes with the crowd, and say to Jack, in a bold voice, 'Open the door till I go down into the cellar!' Renewed laughter followed this sally.