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The recital of Pique-Vinaigre was interrupted. "Roussel, ahoy!" cried a voice from without; "come then, and eat your soup; four o'clock will strike in ten minutes." "All right! the story is about finished. I'll go. Thank you, my boy, you have amused me finely; you may be proud of it," said the keeper to Pique-Vinaigre, going toward the door.
Let us glance at the arrangements as now completed. Pique-Vinaigre, standing near the stove, was getting ready to commence his story. Near him, Skeleton is also standing, ready to spring on Germain the moment the keeper should leave the hall.
And, moreover, Skeleton saw, from the interruptions of several of the prisoners, that they found themselves, thanks to the story of Pique-Vinaigre, filled with ideas that softened their hearts; perhaps, then, they would not assist, with savage indifference, the accomplishment of a frightful murder, of which their presence would make them accomplices.
"He shall die," answered the provost; "but let us wait until Big Cripple comes. When he shall have proved to everybody that" Germain is a spy, enough said: the sheep will bleat no more; his breath shall be stopped." "And what shall we do with the warders, who watch us!" asked the prisoner whom the Skeleton called Ja-votte. "I have my own idea. Pique-Vinaigre shall serve us." "He?
Speaking with so much stoicism, this unfortunate man wished less to appear insensible of his criminal actions than to console and satisfy his sister by this apparent indifference. For a man accustomed to prison manners, and with whom all shame is necessarily dead even the galleys were only a change of condition, a "change of caps," as Pique-Vinaigre said, with frightful truth.
"He will do better, for this poor fellow won't dispute; he is one of my kind, bold as a hare." "Yes, it is a pity," said Skeleton; "we reckoned on this quarrel to amuse us after dinner, the time appears so long." "Yes. What shall we do then?" asked Nicholas. "Since it is so, let Pique-Vinaigre tell us a story. I will not seek a quarrel with Germain," said Barbillon.
Pique-Vinaigre, profiting by the noise and general commotion, had gained the court and knocked at the wicket, in order to inform the keepers of what was going on in the hall. The arrival of the soldiers put an end to the scene. Germain, Skeleton, and the Chourineur were conducted to the governor's presence; the first to lodge his complaint, the others to answer the charge of a fight in the prison.
"Twenty years in the galleys!" repeated the poor sister of Pique-Vinaigre. "But be comforted, Jeanne; they will only pay me in my own coin; I am too feeble to be placed at hard labor. If there is not a manufactory of trumpets and wooden swords, as at Melun, they will give me easy work, and employ me in the infirmary. I am not refractory; I am good-natured.
She recognized one of the two bailiffs who had come to arrest Morel, putting in execution the judgment obtained against the jeweler by Jacques Ferrand. This circumstance, recalling to Rigolette's mind the untiring persecutor of Germain, redoubled her sadness, from which her attention had been slightly withdrawn by the touching and painful communications of the sister of Pique-Vinaigre.
"And he should not have had it too hastily," added a prisoner. "The Alderman," replied Pique-Vinaigre, "could have eaten ten like Cut-in-half. So he was obliged to put these blows in his pocket; but he was none the less furious at being struck, and above all, before Gringalet.
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