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Updated: May 1, 2025
You know our price! Take it or leave it!" The dealer decided: "It's a bargain for twenty francs!" And they shook hands over the deal. Then he took out four big five-franc pieces from the cash drawer, and the two friends pocketed the money. Labouise arose, emptied his glass and left. As he was disappearing in the shadows he turned round to exclaim: "It isn't a buck.
His name was Labouise, but he was called Chicot, and was in partnership with Maillochon, commonly called Mailloche, to practice the doubtful and undefined profession of junk-gatherers along the shore. They were a low order of sailors and they navigated regularly only in the months of famine. The rest of the time they acted as junk-gatherers.
The two men were doubled up with laughter and stamped their feet with joy. The woman, indignant, rushed forward; she did not want her donkey to be tortured, and she offered to return the five francs. Labouise threatened her with a thrashing and pretended to roll up his sleeves. He had paid, hadn't he? Well, then, he would take a shot at her skirts, just to show that it didn't hurt.
By eleven o'clock the last customer had left and old man Jules winked at Labouise and asked: "Well, have you got any?" Labouise made a motion with his head and answered: "Perhaps so, perhaps not!" The dealer insisted: "Perhaps you've not nothing but gray ones?" Chicot dug his hands into his flannel shirt, drew out the ears of a rabbit and declared: "Three francs a pair!"
Toward noon Labouise drew a bottle of wine, some bread and butter and raw onions from a hiding place in their muddy, worm-eaten boat, and they began to eat. When the meal was over they once more stretched out on the dead donkey and slept. At nightfall Labouise awoke and shook his comrade, who was snoring like a buzzsaw. "Come on, sister," he ordered. Maillochon began to row.
Both men darted after the beast, Maillochon with a long stride, Labouise with the short, breathless trot of a little man. But the donkey, tired out, had stopped, and, with a bewildered look, was watching his two murderers approach. Suddenly he stretched his neck and began to bray. Labouise, out of breath, had taken the gun.
She went away, threatening to call the police. They could hear her protesting indignantly and cursing as she went her way. Maillochon held out the gun to his comrade, saying: "It's your turn, Chicot." Labouise aimed and fired.
The woman, bent double, was pulling, turning round occasionally to strike the donkey with a stick. As soon as he saw her, Labouise exclaimed: "Say, Mailloche!" Mailloche answered: "What's the matter?" "Want to have some fun?" "Of course!" "Then hurry, sister; we're going to have a laugh." Chicot took the oars. When he had crossed the river he stopped opposite the woman and called: "Hey, sister!"
When they reached the wall of the Eperon, which separates the Saint-Germain forest from the Maisons-Laffitte Park, Labouise stopped his companion and explained his idea to him. Maillochon was moved by a prolonged, silent laugh. They threw into the water the grass which had covered the body, took the animal by the feet and hid it behind some bushes.
Then began a long discussion about the price. Two francs sixty-five and the two rabbits were delivered. As the two men were getting up to go, old man Jules, who had been watching them, exclaimed: "You have something else, but you won't say what." Labouise answered: "Possibly, but it is not for you; you're too stingy." The man, growing eager, kept asking: "What is it? Something big?
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