I’m standing treat.”
The baker could not repress a smile, and as he cut the white bread he surveyed them in a compassionate way which shocked Gavroche.
“Come, now, baker’s boy!” said he, “what are you taking our measure like that for?”
All three of them placed end to end would have hardly made a measure.
When the bread was cut, the baker threw the sou into his drawer, and Gavroche said to the two children:—
“Grub away.”
The little boys stared at him in surprise.
Gavroche began to laugh.
“Ah! hullo, that’s so! they don’t understand yet, they’re too small.” And he repeated:— “Eat away.”
At the same time, he held out a piece of bread to each of them. And thinking that the elder, who seemed to him the more worthy of his conversation, deserved some special encouragement and ought to be relieved from all hesitation to satisfy his appetite, he added, as he handed him the largest share:—
“Ram that into your muzzle.”
One piece was smaller than the others; he kept this for himself.
The poor children, including Gavroche, were famished.
As they tore their bread apart in big mouthfuls, they blocked up the shop of the baker, who, now that they had paid their money, looked angrily at them.
“Let’s go into the street again,” said Gavroche.
They set off once more in the direction of the Bastille.
From time to time, as they passed the lighted shop-windows, the smallest halted to look at the time on a leaden watch which was suspended from his neck by a cord.
“Well, he is a very green ‘un,” said Gavroche.
Then, becoming thoughtful, he muttered between his teeth:—
“All the same, if I had charge of the babes I’d lock ‘em up better than that.”
Just as they were finishing their morsel of bread, and had reached the angle of that gloomy Rue des Ballets, at the other end of which the low and threatening wicket of La Force was visible:—
“Hullo, is that you, Gavroche?” said some one.
“Hullo, is that you, Montparnasse?” said Gavroche.
A man had just accosted the street urchin, and the man was no other than Montparnasse in disguise, with blue spectacles, but recognizable to Gavroche.
“The bow-wows!” went on Gavroche, “you’ve got a hide the color of a linseed plaster, and blue specs like a doctor.
You’re putting on style, ‘pon my word!”
“Hush!” ejaculated Montparnasse, “not so loud.”
And he drew Gavroche hastily out of range of the lighted shops.
The two little ones followed mechanically, holding each other by the hand.
When they were ensconced under the arch of a porte-cochere, sheltered from the rain and from all eyes:— “Do you know where I’m going?” demanded Montparnasse.
“To the Abbey of Ascend-with-Regret,"36 replied Gavroche.
“Joker!”
And Montparnasse went on:— “I’m going to find Babet.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Gavroche, “so her name is Babet.”
Montparnasse lowered his voice:—
“Not she, he.”
“Ah! Babet.”
“Yes, Babet.”
“I thought he was buckled.”
“He has undone the buckle,” replied Montparnasse. And he rapidly related to the gamin how, on the morning of that very day, Babet, having been transferred to La Conciergerie, had made his escape, by turning to the left instead of to the right in “the police office.”
Gavroche expressed his admiration for this skill.
“What a dentist!” he cried.
Montparnasse added a few details as to Babet’s flight, and ended with:—
“Oh! That’s not all.”
Gavroche, as he listened, had seized a cane that Montparnasse held in his hand, and mechanically pulled at the upper part, and the blade of a dagger made its appearance.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, pushing the dagger back in haste, “you have brought along your gendarme disguised as a bourgeois.”
Montparnasse winked.
“The deuce!” resumed Gavroche, “so you’re going to have a bout with the bobbies?”
“You can’t tell,” replied Montparnasse with an indifferent air. “It’s always a good thing to have a pin about one.”
Gavroche persisted:— “What are you up to to-night?”