The two boys after a time adopted, as their principal source of income, the business of gathering cigar-ends and converting them into pipe-tobacco. It was a profession that required early rising, quick eyes, and light heels, for there were other lads in the same walk of life, but who could be better fitted for such a pursuit than Marcel and Polycarpe? At four every morning they sallied forth to make their round; hunting for the precious bits on the sidewalks and in the gutters of the most frequented and fashionable streets, the Boulevards, the Champs Elysées, and the purlieus of the theatres. Sometimes, when they were flush of money, they bought from the waiters in the coffee-houses the permission to pick up the ends that might be under the tables.
The harvest made, they hastened down to the river's side, and there, seated under or near the dry arches of one of the bridges, they emptied their bags on the ground beside them and commenced the sorting of their merchandise. The prime or first quality consisted of the ends of Havana cigars, regalias, londres, etc.; the second quality, of those of home growth, or bits picked up in dirty gutters, and consequently somewhat deteriorated. The sorting finished, our young tobacconists commenced their work of metamorphosis. Each one was furnished with a small square of smooth wood, a sharp, thin-bladed knife, and a whetstone, for the knife required frequent sharpening during the operation of cutting up the ends. This was performed on the square of wood, and as fine as possible, so as to resemble new smoking tobacco. Paper parcels were then made up of this novel manufacture; the inferior quality selling at one sou the packet; the superior fetching as much as fifty sous the pound.
The rest of the day was passed in disposing of their morning labors, and this was never difficult; they found plenty of customers, masons, street-sweepers, and rat-catchers, and often made as much as three francs each in the day. They might have gained an honest living by this humble means, had they only possessed an honest home. But Monsieur and Madame Poquet were thieves, and the more the lads gained the more was exacted from them. And then in the dreadful drinking-dens they frequented to sell their merchandise they became each day initiated in some new vice. There was indeed nothing to stop them on their downward course; and soon, alas, the orphan boy, intelligent, and naturally conscientious, became versed in knavery and a common street-thief! Poor, poor Marcel!
Chapter VII.
"Soon, like captives, shall ye learn
Ways less wild and laws more stern."
Anon.
Days and weeks and months had passed away in this kind of life, when one morning, while Marcel and Polycarpe were still yawning and stretching themselves in their dirty bed, Loulou, who had gone round the corner to fetch some ready-made hot coffee and milk, for their breakfast, rushed back again with cheeks as white as it was possible for her rarely washed face to show.
"Get up quick and run!" cried she as she burst into the room, "the police are coming this way; I'm sure they're coming here to look for father, and, if they find you, they'll grab you too."
The two boys needed no further calling; indeed, they were out of bed before Loulou had ended her cry of danger. Old Poquet had become a marked man at the Prefecture of Police, and his reputation was very bad among his neighbors. He had been fearing a visit of this kind during the last eight days, and had taken himself off no one knew whither. So the boys, knowing this, would not have been so much afraid for their own safety, had they not done the preceding day what they called "good business," and had in their possession this morning more money and a greater variety of purses than they could well have accounted for.
So they jumped out of bed at the first word of alarm, and huddled on their clothes in less time than it takes to write the fact; and precipitating themselves down the stairs, were out of the house and out of sight, just as two policemen turned into the street. It was not until they had threaded many narrow, dirty streets behind the Pantheon, diving into dark passages, and passing through houses which were thoroughfares, as there are many in the great city, and at last found themselves near the Barrière of St. Jacques, that they felt secure enough to walk slowly and take time to ask each other where they should go.