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Brujon, of whom it is high time that the reader should have a complete idea, was, with an appearance of delicate health and a profoundly premeditated languor, a polished, intelligent sprig, and a thief, who had a caressing glance, and an atrocious smile. His glance resulted from his will, and his smile from his nature. His first studies in his art had been directed to roofs.
A large chimney-flue, probably from some ancient kitchen of the Dukes de la Force, started from the groundfloor, traversed all four stories, cut the dormitories, where it figured as a flattened pillar, into two portions, and finally pierced the roof. Guelemer and Brujon were in the same dormitory. They had been placed, by way of precaution, on the lower story.
How do we know that he doesn't stand in need of us?" By this, which was nothing but French, Thenardier recognized Montparnasse, who made it a point in his elegance to understand all slangs and to speak none of them. As for the fourth, he held his peace, but his huge shoulders betrayed him. Thenardier did not hesitate. It was Guelemer. Brujon replied almost impetuously but still in a low tone:
Besides this he made verses and songs, which gave him great authority. Babet interrogated him: "You say nothing, Brujon?" Brujon remained silent an instant longer, then he shook his head in various ways, and finally concluded to speak: "See here; this morning I came across two sparrows fighting, this evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that's bad. Let's quit." They went away.
Guelemer seized Gavroche by one arm, set him on the roof of the shanty, whose worm-eaten planks bent beneath the urchin's weight, and handed him the rope which Brujon had knotted together during Montparnasse's absence. The gamin directed his steps towards the flue, which it was easy to enter, thanks to a large crack which touched the roof.
On that same night, then, when Little Gavroche picked up the two lost children, Brujon and Guelemer, who knew that Babet, who had escaped that morning, was waiting for them in the street as well as Montparnasse, rose softly, and with the nail which Brujon had found, began to pierce the chimney against which their beds stood. The rubbish fell on Brujon's bed, so that they were not heard.
The old fellow hasn't managed to play it, he doesn't understand how to work the business." Babet added, still in that classical slang which was spoken by Poulailler and Cartouche, and which is to the bold, new, highly colored and risky argot used by Brujon what the language of Racine is to the language of Andre Chenier: "Your tavern-keeper must have been nabbed in the act. You have to be knowing.
They fastened one end of the rope which Brujon had spun in his dungeon to the stumps of the iron bars which they had just wrenched off, flung the other over the outer wall, crossed the abyss at one bound, clung to the coping of the wall, got astride of it, let themselves slip, one after the other, along the rope, upon a little roof which touches the bath-house, pulled their rope after them, jumped down into the courtyard of the bath-house, traversed it, pushed open the porter's wicket, beside which hung his rope, pulled this, opened the porte-cochere, and found themselves in the street.
An idea occurred to him, a last idea, a flash of inspiration; he drew from his pocket the end of Brujon's rope, which he had detached from the chimney of the New Building, and flung it into the space enclosed by the fence. This rope fell at their feet. "A widow," said Babet. "My tortouse!" said Brujon. "The tavern-keeper is there," said Montparnasse. They raised their eyes.
"Let yourself slide, we'll catch you." "My hands are benumbed." "Only fasten the rope to the wall." "I can't." "Then one of us must climb up," said Montparnasse. "Three stories!" ejaculated Brujon. An ancient plaster flue, which had served for a stove that had been used in the shanty in former times, ran along the wall and mounted almost to the very spot where they could see Thenardier.
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