“Well, here’s twelve francs more.”
“That’s not enough, bourgeois.”
“What! that makes three francs a day, and still you’re not satisfied! Your trade seems to be a good one!”
“I’m a poor father of a family; I’ve got five children.”
“Why doesn’t your wife lead you, instead of trusting you to a dog?”
“My wife sings on Place Maubert, kind gentleman.”
“And your children?”
“My oldest, a boy, sings on Boulevard des Italiens; the second, a girl, sings on Rue du Grand-Hurleur; the third, another girl, at Montparnasse; the fourth, a boy, on the Champs-Élysées; and the youngest boy is just beginning to sing on Rue du Petit-Lion. We all sing, kind gentleman.”
“Well! you’re a good one to complain! People who sing from morning till night, and won’t take three francs for a day’s receipts! I should like to know if there’s a family in Paris better off than that!”
The crowd laughed at my neighbor’s reflections. The blind man, who was inclined to be ugly, was threatened with having to go to exhibit his bruises to the magistrate, who had a regular tariff for bruised posteriors of all grades. As he had no desire to expose his hurts to the authorities, fearing a considerable abatement of his claims, he went his way with his dog, Raymond with an insult to nurse, and I with the silhouette, which I had torn down and pocketed.