Beautiful relationship!"
"Hold! there are many dukes and marquises; why, then, should not we of the
oldest family have our nobility?" said the thief with savage irony.
"Yes, Jack Ketch gives you your letters of nobility in Palace Square!"
"Very sure that it is not the parson! So much the more reason in prison one
should be of high Toby nobility, otherwise you are looked upon as a nobody.
You ought to see how they treat those mere fogle-hunters, and who do
their--Hold! there is one here named Germain, a young man who plays the
disgusted, and seems to despise us. Let him take care of his skin. He is a
sneak; he is suspected of being a spy. If this is so, they will slit his
nose, by way of warning!"
"Germain! A young man called Germain?"
"Yes. Do you know him? He is, then, in the family line, notwithstanding his
innocent looks?"
"I do not know him. But if it is the Germain of whom I have heard speak,
his lookout is good."
"How?"
"He once escaped a snare which Velu and the Big Cripple laid for him."
"Why did they do it?"
"I don't know. They said that down among the yokels he had sold one of
their band."
"I was sure of it. Germain is a spy. Well! I will tell this to my friends;
that will give them an appetite. Does the Big Cripple still play tricks on
your lodgers?"
"I am rid of the villain! you will see him here to-day or to-morrow."
"Bravo! we shall have a laugh! He's another who never looks glum!"
"Because he is going to meet Germain here, is why I said his account was
good--if he is the same--"
"And why has the Cripple been nabbed?"
"For a robbery committed with a lagger (released convict) who wished to
remain honest and labor.
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