"I should be glad if you were dead."
"Thank ye, daddy, thank ye! But that pleasure is yet to come, and to-day I'm alive and kicking, and inclined to take things easy. If they serve me as they did my father, at least I shall have enjoyed my life while it lasted."
"It's a nice life, yours is!"
"Superb! Since I have been here I've enjoyed myself like a king. If we had lamps and fireworks, they would have lighted them up, and fired them off in my honour, when they knew I was the son of the famous Martial who was guillotined."
"How affecting! What a glorious parentage!"
"Why, d'ye see, there are many dukes and marquises. Why, then, shouldn't we have our nobility, too?—such as us!" said the ruffian, with bitter irony.
"To be sure, and Charlot (the headsman) will give you your letters of nobility on the Place du Palais."
"You may be sure it won't be the gaol chaplain. But in prison we should have the nobility of top-sawyers (noted robbers) to be thought much of; if not, you are looked upon as nobody at all. You should only see how they behave to those who are not tip-tops and give themselves airs. Now there's in here a chap called Germain, a young fellow, who appears disgusted with us, and seems to despise us all. Let him take care of his hide! He's a sulky hound, and they say he is a 'nose' (a spy); if he is, they'll screw his nose around, just by way of warning."
"Germain? A young man called Germain?"
"Yes; d'ye know him? Is he one of us? If so, in spite of his looks, we—"