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"Be quiet, Jean Petitjean!" exclaimed the girl, giving him a mock blow. "Thou shall not hurt my father!" They laughed drunkenly and resumed the dance. The man with the older woman was not greatly to my surprise Jean Petitjean's companion of the night. The woman was addressing him as Raoul. She seemed trying to quiet him, for he was shouting boisterously as he twirled.
The pedler is always popular with his world and Dives knew Petitjean to be as honest as a pedler can ever hope to be in a world where small pence are only made large by some one being sacrificed on the altar of duplicity.
He called to the leader of his flock: "Petitjean! stray not, my little one. I shall be back sooner than the daisies close." Then he turned to me again. I noticed a pallid, desperate look in his face, as though he were strung to great effort; but it was the face of a mindless one still. "Do you not fear?" he said, in a whisper; and the apple in his throat seemed all choking core.
Petitjean, who was, at the time, the vicar-apostolic, availed himself of such favorable relations to erect a church at Yokohama, and establish his residence at Nagasaki.
Then, in the gloom, I saw the villainous face of Jean Petitjean looking into mine, twelve paces away, and in his hand was a revolver, too. We fired together. But the surprize spoiled his aim, for his bullet whistled past me. I think my shot struck him somewhere, for he uttered a yell and began running back along the tunnel as hard as he could. I followed him, firing as fast as I could reload.
When Petitjean, the pedler, and his wife drove in under the Gothic sign, the huge lumbering vehicle was as quickly surrounded as when any of the neighboring notabilities arrived in emblazoned chariots.
Petitjean was leading his charges homewards in default of a human commander, and presently we overtook them browsingly loitering and desirous of definite instructions. I pass over Camille's meeting with his mother, and the wonder, and fear, and pity of it all. Our hurts were attended to, and the battery of questions met with the best armour of tact at command.
I felt the rope tighten upon my wrists and limbs; presently I opened my aching eyes to find myself trussed like a chicken to two legs of the table. I think it was Jean Petitjean who said something about shooting me, and was knocked down for it. Leroux was yelling like a demoniac.
Simon bad man. He give my gal to Jean Petitjean. My gal good gal till Simon give her to Jean Petitjean. Simon bad man. Me kill him one day." I saw a glimmer of hope now, though of what I hardly knew; or perhaps it was only the desire to talk of Jacqueline and hear her name upon my lips and Pierre's.
I went out of the room, still gripping my pistol, and I took care to let Simon see it as we descended the stairs side by side. The noisy laughter in the ballroom had ceased, but I heard Raoul and Jean Petitjean quarrelling, and their thick voices told me that they were in no condition to aid their master. Then there were only Leroux and Philippe Lacroix to deal with.
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