He walked up the Rue de Picardie with those cold eyes of his full of a hard glare. His fists were stuffed into his trouser pockets; he swung his shoulders as he walked, and jerked his head from side to side. The fighting mood flared in him.
Paul was at work on the roof. He had carried up about twenty sheets of corrugated iron, and his hammer began to ring on them as Louis Blanc came up the street. To Bibi the noise was like the clashing of sword and buckler, a barbaric sound echoing out of his savage Gaulish past.
“Hallo, there!”
Brent turned, and leaning against the roof, looked down at the man in the street. Bibi’s figure was foreshortened. His long chin seemed to stick out; he looked all shoulders and feet.
“Good morning,” said Paul, “it has turned fine after the storm.”
Bibi grinned and looked at the ladder that rested against the front of the house.
“So you thought that dirty trick of yours rather clever.”
“What trick, Monsieur Blanc?”
Bibi raised a big hand, its fingers hooked, as though he were reaching for the man up above. He looked ugly, devilish ugly.
“Come down,” he said.