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Caillette passed hours of dreadful anxiety, and when a ragpicker told her that he saw a woman who answered her description pass the Barriere d'Italie on a milk-wagon, she thought him a messenger of God.
There was one of them with a huge body and insect-like arms and legs, wearing a black silk rag, with a yellow scarf over her head; there was another one, tall and bony, who was bareheaded and wore a servant's apron; and others, too old ones plastered up and young ones so dirty that a ragpicker would not have picked them up.
"I'll give you four pennies for your A-B-C book," said a ragpicker who stood by. Then and there, the book changed hands. And to think that poor old Geppetto sat at home in his shirt sleeves, shivering with cold, having sold his coat to buy that little book for his son!
The ragdealer looked over the contents of the bundle, made a second inventory, and then in a jesting tone, with a rough voice, asked: "Where did you steal this?" The three associates chorused their protestation, but the ragpicker paid no heed. "I can't give you more than three pesetas for the whole business." "No," answered Vidal. "Rather than accept that we'll take the bundle with us."
All belonged to that indigent class which begins to separate from the lowest of petty bourgeoisie in straitened circumstances, and which extends from misery to misery into the lowest depths of society down to those two beings in whom all the material things of civilization end, the sewer-man who sweeps up the mud, and the ragpicker who collects scraps.
Yet they could not keep to their blankets, as they would have wished; for the frost was inexorable, and the fire box consumed much fuel. The hair of their heads and faces grew long and shaggy, while their garments would have disgusted a ragpicker. But they did not care. They were sick, and there was no one to see; besides, it was very painful to move about.
It was only when I was so hungry and so tired that I had to give up. If I had dropped one hour sooner all would have been over." Then she told him how her donkey, licking her face, had brought her back to consciousness, and how the ragpicker had saved her from starvation.
Get off my ship, you lout, or I'll murder you." Mr. Gibney hung his head. "Scraggsy an' you, too, McGuffey I got to admit that this here is one on Adelbert P. Gibney. "Oh, hear him," shrilled Captain Scraggs. "One on him! It's two on you, you bloody-handed ragpicker. I suppose that other case contains opium, too! If there ain't another dead corpse in No. 2 case I hope my teeth may drop overboard."
"I then had to find out what had become of the little daughter," continued Fabry. "This ragpicker told me that she had met her in the Chantilly woods and that she was dying of hunger. It was her own donkey that she sold to the ragpicker who found her."
Méry; at Montmartre, along the Canal de Bièvre; in the purlieus of Belleville; out beyond the Bastile; in fact, wherever there is dirt enough to suit their tastes. For if the truth is to be written here, it must be said that the ragpicker of Paris is the most degraded creature ever met in the guise of a human being. I have met Digger Indians, too, in California.
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