with the turnkeys who watch us?" inquired the
prisoner whom the Skeleton called Javatte.

"I have my plan, which Pique-Vinaigre will aid."

"He! He's a coward."

"And no stronger than a flea."

"I'm awake. Where is he?"

"He had come out of the visiting-room, but went back again to see his
lawyer."

"And is Germain still in the visiting-room?"

"Yes, with the little wench who comes to see him."

"When he returns be on your guard. But we must wait for Pique-Vinaigre,
without him we can do nothing."

"No?"

"No."

"And Germain shall be done for?"

"I'll take care of that."

"But with what? They have taken all our knives away."

"What do you think of these nippers, would you like to have your neck in
their clutch?" asked the Skeleton, opening his long bony fingers, hard
as iron.

"You'll choke him?"

"Decidedly."

"But if they find out that it is you?"

"Well, what if they do? Am I a calf with two heads, such as they show at
the fair?"

"No, that's true; a man has but one throat, and yours--"

"Is sentenced; my lawyer told me so yesterday. I was taken with my hand
in the bag, and my knife in the weasand of the stiff'un. I'm a 'return
horse,' too; so nothing can be more certain. I'll drop my head into
Charlot's (the headsman's) basket, and I shall see if it's true that he
does his customers, and puts sawdust into his basket instead of the bran
which government allows us."

"True, the guillotine has a right to its bran. Now, I remember my father
was robbed in the same way," said Nicholas Martial, with a ferocious
grin.

This horrid jest created immense laughter amongst the prisoners. This is
fearful, but far from exaggeration; we give but a faint idea of these
conversations, so common in prisons. The prisoners were all laughing
joyously.

"Thousand thunders!" cried the Skeleton. "I wish they who punish us
would come and see how we bear it. If they will come to the Barriere St.
Jacques the day of my benefit they will hear me address the audience in
a neat and appropriate speech, and say to Charlot, in a gentlemanly
tone, 'Pere Sampson, the cord if you please.'"[1]

[1] To understand this horrid jest the English reader must know
that the doors in France are usually opened by the porter, who
sits in his room and pulls a cord to allow the person going out
to have free egress; and the blade of the guillotine glides
down the grooves of the machine, after a spring has been set in
mot