"Don't fidget; don't fidget; if you do you may cause Azor to go off."
"Flameche means his dog of a pistol," added father Bribri by way of translation.
"Frauds that you are!" cried the thief, carefully abstaining from moving, but beginning to tremble, although he made an effort to smile. "What do you propose to do? Come, now, be done with your fooling! I have had enough of it."
"Wait a minute!" interjected the ragpicker. "Let us converse a spell. You asked me why we are in insurrection. I shall satisfy your curiosity. First of all, it is not to break into money boxes and loot shops. Mercy! A shop is to a merchant what a sack is to me. Each to his trade and his tools. We are in insurrection, my young fellow, because it annoys us to see old folks like myself die of hunger on the street like a stray dog when our strength to work is no more. We are in insurrection, my young fellow, because it is a torment to us to hear ourselves repeat the fact that, out of every hundred young girls who walk the streets at night, ninety-five are driven thereto by misery. We are in insurrection, my young fellow, because it riles us to see thousands of ragamuffins like Flameche, children of the Paris pavements, without hearth or home, father or mother, abandoned to the mercy of the devil, and exposed to become, some day or other, out of lack for a crust of bread, thieves and assassins, like yourself, my young fellow!"
"You need not fear, father Bribri," put in Flameche; "you need not fear—I shall never need to steal. I help you and other traders in old duds to pack your sacks and dispose of your pickings. I treat myself to the best that the dogs have left over. I make my burrow in your bundle of old clothes, and sleep there like a dormouse. No fear, I tell you, father Bribri, I need not steal. As to me, when I insurrect, by the honor of my name! it is because it finally rasps upon me not to be allowed to angle for red fish in the large pond of the Tuileries—and I have made up my mind, in case we come out victors, to fish myself to death. Each one after his own fancy. Long live the Reform! Down with Louis Philippe!"
And turning to the thief who, seeing the five or six armed workingmen coming back, made an effort to slip away:
"Do not budge, mister! Or, if you do, I shall let Azor loose upon you." Saying which he tightened his finger again on the trigger of his pistol.
"But what is it you have in mind to do with me?" cried the thief, turning pale at the sight of three of the workingmen, who were getting their guns ready, while another, coming out of the grocery that he had just before stepped into, brought with him a poster made of brown paper on which some lettering had been freshly traced with a brush dipped in blacking.
A dismal presentiment assailed the thief. He straggled to disengage himself and cried out:
"If you charge me with theft—take me before the magistrate."