quarrels in one corner, kisses in another, and the reader will have some idea of this whole picture, over which flickered the light of a great, naming fire, which made a thousand huge and grotesque shadows dance over the walls of the drinking shop.
As for the noise, it was like the inside of a bell at full peal.
The dripping-pan, where crackled a rain of grease, filled with its continual sputtering the intervals of these thousand dialogues, which intermingled from one end of the apartment to the other.
In the midst of this uproar, at the extremity of the tavern, on the bench inside the chimney, sat a philosopher meditating with his feet in the ashes and his eyes on the brands. It was Pierre Gringoire.
"Be quick! make haste, arm yourselves! we set out on the march in an hour!" said Clopin Trouillefou to his thieves.
A wench was humming,—
"Bonsoir mon père et ma mère,
Les derniers couvrent le feu."[1]
Two card players were disputing,—
"Knave!" cried the reddest faced of the two, shaking his fist at the other; "I'll mark you with the club. You can take the place of Mistigri in the pack of cards of monseigneur the king."
"Ugh!" roared a Norman, recognizable by his nasal accent, "we are packed in here like the saints of Caillouville!"
"My sons," the Duke of Egypt was saying to his audience, in a falsetto voice, "sorceresses in France go to the witches' sabbath without broomsticks, or grease, or steed, merely by means of some magic words. The witches of Italy always have a buck waiting for them at their door. All are bound to go out through the chimney."
The voice of the young scamp armed from head to foot, dominated the uproar.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" he was shouting. "My first day in armor! Outcast! I am an outcast. Give me something to
- ↑ Good night, father and mother, the last cover up the fire.
