In the early spring of this year François found himself, one day, in a crowd near to the Porte St. Denis. He stood high on his long legs, looking on, while men on ladders broke up the royal escutcheon on the stone archway. It amused him a little to see how furious they were, and how crazy were the foolish poissardes: these fishwomen, who had so many privileges under the monarchy, at every blow of the hammer yelled with delight; and behold, here was the Crab, Quatre Pattes, far away from her quarter, hoarse with screaming, a horrible edition of woman as she stood under the arch, careless of the falling fragments. On the edge of the more prudent crowd, an old man was guilty of some rash protest in the way of speech. François heard the cry, "À bas l'aristocrate! à la lanterne!" and saw the Crab leap on the man like some fierce insect, horribly agile, a thin gray tress down her back. Swift and terrible it was. In a moment he swung writhing from the chain of the street-lantern, fighting with vain hands to loosen the rope. A red-haired woman leaped up and caught his leg. There was laughter. The man above her hung limp. François did not laugh. He tried to get out of the crowd, away from this quivering horror. To do so was not easy. The crowd was noisy and turbulent, swaying to and fro, intent on mischief. As he moved he saw a small, stout man take, with some lack of skill, a purse from the side-pouch of a huge fishwoman. François, being close to the thief, saw him seized by the woman he had robbed. In the press, which was great, François slipped a hand into the thief's pocket, and took out the purse. Meanwhile there were again wild cries of "To the lantern!" "Up with him!" the woman lamenting her loss, and denouncing the man who had stolen. His life was like to be brief. Surrounded by these she-devils, he stood, white, shaking, and swearing he was innocent. The man's anguish of fear moved François. "Dame!" he cried, "search the man before you hang him! I say, search him!" While one of them began to act on his hint, François let the purse fall into the pocket of the original owner—an easy feat for a practised hand. "The man has it not. Look again in thy pouch, maman," he cried. "The man has it not; that is plain." When the dame of the market found her purse, she turned on François, amid the laughter of her friends. "Thou art a confederate. Thou didst put it back thyself." Indeed, things were like to go ill. The crowd was of a mind to hang some one. A dozen hands fell on him, while the man he had aided slipped away quietly. François shook off the women, and with foot and fist cleared a space, for he was of great strength of body. He would have earned but a short reprieve had he not seen the Crab. He called to her: "À moi! Quatre Pattes!" The ring of red-faced furies fell back for a moment before the rage and power of a man defending his life. Half dismayed, but furious, they shouted: "Hang him! rail him!" and called to the men to help them. Again François was hustled and struck as the crowd closed in on him. He struggled, and called to Toto, whom nothing so disturbed as to see a rude touch laid on his master. In an instant the dog was busy with the stout calves about him, biting, letting go, and biting again. The diversion was valuable, but brief; and soon Toto, who was not over-valiant, fled to his master, the crowd yelling: "Kill him! Hang him and the beast!" Once more François exerted his exceptional strength, crying, "Not while I live!" and catching up the dog under his arm. Then he heard the shrill voice of the Crab. "À moi!" he shouted, and struck right and left as Quatre Pattes, with her sticks, squirmed in under the great arms of the fishwomen.
"À moi!" she cried, "François!" With her sticks, and tongue of the vilest, she cleared a space as the venomous creatures fell back from one more hideous than themselves.
Meanwhile the accusing dame shook her purse at the Crab, crying, "He put it back; I felt him do it." But the rest laughed, and the Crab faced her with so fierce a look that she shrank away.
"Off with thee!" said the Crab to François; "thou wert near to the lantern."
"'T is a Jacobin of the best," she cried to the mob; "a friend of mine. You will get into trouble—you cursed fools!"
The crowd cheered her, and François, seizing the chance, cried, laughing, "Adieu, mesdames," and in a moment was out of the crowd and away. He turned as many corners as possible, and soon, feeling it safe to move more slowly, set down the dog and readjusted his dress.
A minute later he saw beside him the man he had saved. "Do not speak to me here," he said; "follow me at a distance." The man, still white and shaking, obeyed him. At the next turn, as François paused in doubt which way to go, he met Quatre Pattes.
"The devil nearly got thee, my little boy," she said; "but a smart thief is worth some trouble to save. Pay me for thy long neck, and quick, too." She was full eau-de-vie, and, as usual then, savage and reckless.
"More!" she cried—"more!" as he gave her a franc. "More, more! Ungrateful beast, thou art good to feed me, and for little else. More, more! I say, or I will call them after thee, and this time I shall have a good pull at the rope. More, more!" and she struck him with her stick. "Sacré, waif of hell! More! more!" she screamed. "And that fellow who helped thee! I have seen him; I know him."
François turned without a word, and ran as fast as his long legs would carry him. Two blocks away he was overtaken by the other thief. They pushed on in silence.