The Slaves of Paris - Émile Gaboriau (macos ebook reader .txt) 📗

glasses, while the other was stout and ruddy, with the unmistakable air of a man of the world about him. André would have given the twenty thousand francs which he still had in his pocket if he could have heard a single word of their conversation. He was moving skilfully forward so as to place himself within earshot, when not two feet from him he heard a shrill whistle twice repeated. There was something so strange and curious in the sound of this whistle that André looked round and noticed that the three men whom he was watching had been also attracted by it. The tall man with the colored glasses glanced suspiciously around him, and then after a nod to his companions turned and re-entered the office, while Verminet and the other walked away arm in arm. André was undecided; should he try and discover who these two men were? Near the entrance he saw a lad selling hot chestnuts. “Ah!” said he, “the little chestnut seller will always be there; but I may lose the others if I stay here.” He followed the two men as quickly as possible. They did not go very far, and speedily entered a fine house in the Rue Montmartre. Here André was for a moment puzzled, as he did not know to whom they were paying a visit, but noticing an inscription on the wall of “Cashier’s Office on the first floor,” he exclaimed⁠—

“Ah! it is to the banker’s they have gone!”

He questioned a man coming downstairs and heard that M. Martin Rigal, the banker, had his offices and residence there.

“I have struck a vein of good luck today,” thought he; “and now if my little friend the chestnut seller can only tell me the names of these men, I have done a good day’s work. I do hope that he has not gone.”

The boy was still there, and he had two customers standing by the chafing-dish which contained the glowing charcoal, and a working lad in cap and blouse was arguing so hotly with the lad that they did not notice André’s appearance.

“You can stow that chat,” said the boy; “I have told your father the price I would take. You want my station and stock-in-trade. Hand over two hundred and fifty francs, and they are yours.”

“But my dad will only give two hundred,” returned the other.

“Then he don’t need give nothing, for he won’t get ’em,” answered the chestnut vender sharply. “Two hundred francs for a pitch like this! Why, I have sometimes taken ten francs and more, and that ain’t a lie, on the word of Toto Chupin.”

André was tickled with this strange designation, and addressed himself to the lad who bore it.

“My good boy,” said he, “I think you were here an hour ago. Did you see anything of three gentlemen who came out of the house and stood talking together for a short time?”

The lad turned sharply round and examined his questioner from tip to toe with an air of the most supreme impertinence; and then, in a tone which matched his look, replied⁠—

“What does it signify to you who they are? Mind your own business, and be off!”

André had had some little experience of this delightful class of street Arab, of which Toto Chupin was so favorable a specimen, and knew their habits, customs, and language.

“Come, my chicken,” said he, “spit it out, it won’t blister your tongue, to answer a man who asks a civil question.”

“Well, then, I saw ’em, sharp enough, and what then?”

“Why, that I should like to have their names if they have such an article belonging to ’em!”

Toto raised his cap and scratched his head, as if to stimulate his brains, and as he brushed up his thick head of dirty yellow hair, he eyed André cunningly.

“And suppose I know the blokes’ names and tells ’em out to you, what will you stand?” asked he.

“Ten sous.”

The delightful youth puffed out his cheeks, then expelled the pent-up wind by a sudden slap, as a mark of his disgust at the meanness of the offer.

“Pull up your braces, my lord,” said he sarcastically, “or you’ll be losing the contents of your breeches pockets. Ten sous, indeed! Perhaps you’d like me to lend ’em to yer?”

André smiled pleasantly.

“Did you think, my little man, that I was going to offer you twenty thousand shiners?” asked he.

“Won again!” cried Toto; “I laid myself a new hat that you weren’t a fool, and I have collared the stakes.”

“Why do you think I am not a fool?”

“Because a fool would have begun by offering me five francs and gone up slick to ten, while you began at a modest figure.”

The painter smiled.

“But you were too old a bird to be caught like that,” continued the lad; and as he spoke, he stopped, and contracted his brow as if in deep perplexity. Of course he was acquainted with the names, but ought he to give them? Instantly he scented an enemy. Harmless people did not usually ask questions of itinerant chestnut venders, and to open his mouth might be to injure Mascarin, Beaumarchef, or the guileless Tantaine.

This last thought determined the lad.

“Keep your ten sous, my pippin,” said the boy; “I’ll tell you what you want to know all gratis and for nothing, because I’ve taken a real fancy to the cut of your mug. The tall chap was Mascarin, the fat un Doctor Hortebise, and t’other⁠—stop, let me think it out in my knowledge box; ah! I have it, he was Verminet.”

André was so delighted that, drawing from his pocket a five-franc piece, he tossed it to the boy.

“Thanks, my noble lord,” said Chupin, and was about to add something more in a similar vein, when he glanced down the street. His look changed in an instant, and he fixed his eyes upon the painter’s face with a very strange expression.

“What is the matter, my lad?” asked André, surprised at this sudden change.

“Nothing,” answered Chupin; “nothing at all; only