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The platform of the local Demosthenes stood in a corner near the street. "'Woe to thee, O Moab! Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh, if you light not the torch of equal rights!" exclaimed the platform patterer as Saint-Prosper drew near. "Awake, sons of the free soil! Now is the time to make a stand!
As a character orally portrayed, Cobbs was fully on a par with Doctor Marigold. Directly the Reader opened his lips, whether as the Boots or as the Cheap Jack, the Novelist seemed to disappear, and there instead, talking glibly to us from first to last just as the case might happen to be, was either the patterer on the cart footboard or honest Cobbs touching his hair with a bootjack.
The general attention was divided between the executioner, the victim, and the patterer, who was about innocently to deprive Germain of the only succor which he had to depend upon; for it was almost certain that the keeper, seeing the prisoners attentive to the story of Pique-Vinaigre, would believe his presence useless, and profit by this moment of calm to go and take his repast.
Among the women who did not sleep, and who had witnessed this mute scene, were three persons whose names have already been mentioned in the course of this history: Mademoiselle de Fermont, daughter of the unhappy widow ruined by the cupidity of Jacques Ferrand; La Lorraine, a poor washer-woman, to whom Fleur-de-Marie had formerly given what money she had left; and Jeanne Duport, sister of Pique-Vinaigre, the patterer of La Force.
"There's a funny idea!" said the prisoner in the blue cap. "And what is still more funny," replied the patterer, "is that, with this idea, one would have said that Gringalet consoled himself for being beaten; and that proves that, at bottom, he had not a bad heart." "I think so on the contrary," said the keeper, "Pique-Vinaigre is jolly amusing." At this moment the clock struck half-past three.
He could prevent the patterer from finishing his story, but then his last hope vanished of seeing the keeper retire before the hour in which Germain would be in safety. "Oh! stupid, is it?" said Pique-Vinaigre. "Well, the honorable society shall be the judge. "There was not then an animal more wicked than the large ape Gargousse, which was, above all, as savage as his master toward children.
"Oh! talking with Germain?" said Skeleton, looking attentively at Pique-Vinaigre, without pausing in his mastication. "Yes!" answered the patterer. Isn't he a fool! this Germain! I used to think that he was a spy, but he is too much of a flat for that!" "Oh! you think so?" said Skeleton, exchanging a rapid and significant glance with Nicholas and Barbillon. "I am as sure of it as that I see ham!
"It is true enough, the golden gnat prevented his throat from being cut," cried the prisoners, transported with joy. "Hooray for the golden gnat!" cried Blue Cap. "Yes, long live the golden gnat!" repeated several voices. "Bravo, Pique-Vinaigre and his stories!" said another. "Stop, then," resumed the patterer, "here's the finest and most terrible part of the story that I had promised you.
There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails. In the music of the harp which trembles round the world it is the insisting on this which thrills us. The harp is the travelling patterer for the Universe's Insurance Company, recommending its laws, and our little goodness is all the assessment that we pay.
Pattering is only profitable during business hours, which, in New York, do not commence much before 9 o'clock, and close by 5 P. M. So the patterer is a gentleman with the rest of them, and shuts up shop at the same time A. T. Stewart and H. B. Claflin do their marble and sandstone palaces. There are exceptions to this rule, as there are to all rules.
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