"Thirty-five sous for taking in the river foot-baths, up to the stomach from twelve to fifteen hours a day, summer and winter; but let me be just, and tell the truth; so if, through having my toes in the water, I get the grenouille,[7] I am allowed to break my arms in breaking up old vessels, and unloading timber on my back. I begin as a beast of burden, and end like a fish's tail. When I lose my strength entirely, I shall take a rake and a wicker basket, like the old rag-picker whom I see in the recollections of my childhood."
[7] A disease of the skin to which all who work in the water are liable.
"And yet you are not unhappy."
"There are worse than I am; and without my dreams of the sergeant and soldiers with their throats cut,—for I have the dream still sometimes,—I could quietly wait for the moment when I should drop down dead at the corner of some dunghill, like that at which I was born; but the dream—the dream—by heaven and earth! I don't like even to think of that," said the Chourineur, and he emptied his pipe at the corner of the table.
The Goualeuse had hardly listened to the Chourineur; she seemed wholly absorbed in a deep and melancholy reverie. Rodolph himself was pensive. A tragic incident occurred, which brought these three personages to a recollection of the spot in which they were.
CHAPTER V.
THE ARREST.
The man who had gone out for a moment, after having requested the ogress to look after his jug and plate, soon returned, accompanied by a tall, brawny man, to whom he said, "It was a chance to meet in this way, old fellow! Come in, and let us have a glass together."