"Thou must learn to move those huge ears." Would he be his assistant? When times were bad they might profit by tempting chances in their old line of life.
François was just now as near to penitence as his nature permitted him to be, and his recent peril disposed him to listen. The more he reflected as Despard talked, the more he liked it. He ended by saying, "Yes"; and before the Crab had reached home he had taken away his slender store of garments, and, with Toto at his heels, found his way to the room of his new friend, in a little street which ran into the Rue Basse du Rempart, not far from the Madeleine. Thus began a mode of life which he found fresh and full of satisfaction.
The pair so strangely brought together took a room in the fifth story, and, with Toto, set up domestic life on a modest scale. It was much to François's contentment. He had what I may call a side taste for the respectable, and this new business seemed to him a decided rise in life. It was varied enough to amuse him; nor was it so conventionally commercial as to lack such adventure and incident as this wild young reprobate of the Cité had learned to like. The new business soon gave the partners more than enough to live upon. After their lodging and diet were provided for, Pierre Despard took two thirds of what was left, and put it away in a stocking, at first with some doubt as to his comrade, but soon with the trust which François was apt to inspire. From early morn until noon, Pierre taught François to do tricks with cards, to juggle with balls, and to tell fortunes by the lines of the hand. Toto was educated to carry a basket and collect sous, to stand on his head with a pipe in his mouth, and to pick out a card at a signal. The rest of the day was spent in the booth, where they rarely failed to be well paid. At evening there was a quiet café and dominoes, and a modest petit verre of brandy. Meanwhile the peasants burned châteaux, and Protestant and Catholic hanged one another in the pleasant South.
"PIERRE TAUGHT FRANÇOIS TO JUGGLE WITH BALLS."
Now and then the Paris mob enjoyed a like luxury, and amid unceasing disorder the past was swept on to the dust-heaps of history.
The little audience of children and nurses in front of the booth was as yet nowise concerned as to these vast changes; nor was Toto disturbed when it was thought prudent to robe him with a three-colored ribbon. The politics of the masters of the show varied as their audiences changed from the children of the rich at noon to the Jacobin workmen at the coming of dusk. François personally preferred splendor and the finery of the great. He was by nature a Royalist. Pierre was silent or depressed, and said little as to his opinions. But both had the prudence of men always too near to poverty to take risks of loss for the sake of political sentiments in which they had no immediate interest.
Despard was a somber little man, and nimble, as some fat men are. He was as red-cheeked as a Norman apple, and, at this time, of unchanging gravity of face and conduct. Not even François's gaiety could tempt him to relate his history; and although at times a great talker, he became so terrified when frankly questioned as to his past, that François ceased to urge him. That any one should desire to conceal anything was to François amazing. He was himself a valuable possession to his morose partner.
"I do not laugh," said Pierre; "nay, not even as a matter of business. Thou shalt laugh for two. Some day we will go to see the little girl who is at Sèvres, in a school of nuns. 'T is there the money goes."
This was a sudden revelation to François. Here was a human being, like himself a thief, who was sacrificing something for another. The isolation of his own life came before him with a sense of shock. He said he should be glad to see the child, and when should they go?