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'You are a clock. How is it that you always know?'

'How can I say? I always know what the hour is, and where I am. I was

brought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I am. See

here! Marseilles harbour;' on his knees on the pavement, mapping it all

out with a swarthy forefinger; 'Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain

over there, Algiers over there. Creeping away to the left here, Nice.

Round by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine

Ground. City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here,

Porto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away

to--hey! there's no room for Naples;' he had got to the wall by this

time; 'but it's all one; it's in there!'

He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a

lively look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though

rather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his

grotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown

throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seaman-like

trousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and

a knife in it.

'Judge if I come back from Naples as I went! See here, my master! Civita

Vecchia, Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is in

there), Marseilles, you and me. The apartment of the jailer and his keys

is where I put this thumb; and here at my wrist they keep the national

razor in its case--the guillotine locked up.'

The other man spat suddenly on the pavement, and gurgled in his throat.

Some lock below gurgled in its throat immediately afterwards, and then

a door crashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of

a sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the

prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years old,

and a basket.

'How goes the world this forenoon, gentlemen? My little one, you see,

going round with me to have a peep at her father's birds. Fie, then!

Look at the birds, my pretty, look at the birds.'

He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at

the grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed to

mistrust. 'I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist,' said he

(they all spoke in French, but the little man was an Italian); 'and if I

might recommend you not to game--'

'You don't recommend the master!' said John Baptist, showing his teeth

as he smiled.

'Oh! but the master wins,' returned the jailer, with a passing look of

no particular liking at the other man, 'and you lose. It's quite another

thing. You get husky bread and sour drink by it; and he gets sausage of

Lyons, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good

wine by it. Look at the birds, my pretty!'

'Poor birds!' said the child.

The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped

shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison. John

Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for

him. The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance

at the basket.

'Stay!' said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge

of the grate, 'she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor

John Baptist. We must break it to get it through into the cage. So,

there's a tame bird to kiss the little hand! This sausage in a vine

leaf is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again--this veal in savoury jelly is for

Monsieur Rigaud. Again--these three white little loaves are for Monsieur

Rigaud. Again, this cheese--again, this wine--again, this tobacco--all

for Monsieur Rigaud. Lucky bird!'

The child put all these things between the bars into the soft, Smooth,

well-shaped hand, with evident dread--more than once drawing back

her own and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened into an

expression half of fright and half of anger. Whereas she had put the

lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John

Baptist (who had scarcely as much nail on his eight fingers and two

thumbs as would have made out one for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready

confidence; and, when he kissed her hand, had herself passed it

caressingly over his face. Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this

distinction, propitiated the father by laughing and nodding at the

daughter as often as she gave him anything; and, so soon as he had

all his viands about him in convenient nooks of the ledge on which he

rested, began to eat with an appetite.

When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that

was more remarkable than prepossessing. His moustache went up under his

nose, and his nose came down over his moustache, in a very sinister and

cruel manner.

'There!' said the jailer, turning his basket upside down to beat the

crumbs out, 'I have expended all the money I received; here is the note

of it, and that's a thing accomplished. Monsieur Rigaud, as I expected

yesterday, the President will look for the pleasure of your society at

an hour after mid-day, to-day.'

'To try me, eh?' said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in

mouth.

'You have said it. To try you.'

'There is no news for me?' asked John Baptist, who had begun,

contentedly, to munch his bread.

The jailer shrugged his shoulders.

'Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?'

'What do I know!' cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern

quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his fingers,

as if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. 'My friend, how is it

possible for me to tell how long you are to lie here? What do I know,

John Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life! There are prisoners here

sometimes, who are not in such a devil of a hurry to be tried.' He

seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; but

Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with quite so

quick an appetite as before.

'Adieu, my birds!' said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty

child in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss.

'Adieu, my birds!' the pretty child repeated.

Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he

walked away with her, singing her the song of the child's game:

'Who passes by this road so late?

Compagnon de la Majolaine!

Who passes by this road so late?

Always gay!'

that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, and

in good time and tune, though a little hoarsely:

'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,

Compagnon de la Majolaine!

Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,

Always gay!'

which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the

prison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear the

song out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight. Then the

child's head disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head disappeared, but

the little voice prolonged the strain until the door clashed.

Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before

the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for imprisonment,

and seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his foot that he had

better resume his own darker place. The little man sat down again

upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly

accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks of coarse bread before

himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began contentedly to work his way

through them as if to clear them off were a sort of game.

Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at the

veal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make his mouth

water; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of the president

and tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as clean as he could,

and to wipe them on his vine leaves. Then, as he paused in his drink

to contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his moustache went up, and his nose

came down.

'How do you find the bread?'

'A little dry, but I have my old sauce here,' returned John Baptist,

holding up his knife. 'How sauce?'

'I can cut my bread so--like a melon. Or so--like an omelette. Or

so--like a fried fish. Or so--like Lyons sausage,' said John Baptist,

demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and soberly chewing

what he had in his mouth.

'Here!' cried Monsieur Rigaud. 'You may drink. You may finish this.'

It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor

Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned

it upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips.

'Put the bottle by with the rest,' said Rigaud.

The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted

match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of

little squares of paper which had been brought in with it.

'Here! You may have one.'

'A thousand thanks, my master!' John Baptist said in his own language,

and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen.

Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock

into a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the

bench. Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in

each hand, and smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some uncomfortable

attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of

that part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They

were so drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once

followed them to and back from the pavement in some surprise.

'What an infernal hole this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long

pause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the

light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!'

It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the

staircase wall, through which the sky was never seen--nor anything else.

'Cavalletto,' said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly withdrawing his gaze from

this funnel to which they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, 'you

know me for a gentleman?'

'Surely, surely!'

'How long have we been here?' 'I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at

midnight. You, nine weeks and three days, at five this afternoon.'

'Have I ever done anything here? Ever touched the broom, or spread

the mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected the

dominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work?'

'Never!'

'Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?'

John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the

right forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the Italian

language.

'No! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I was a

gentleman?'

'ALTRO!' returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a

most vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis,

a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt,

a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present

instance, with a significance beyond all power of written expression,

our familiar English 'I believe you!'

'Haha! You are right! A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I'll live, and

a gentleman I'll die! It's my intent to be a gentleman. It's my game.

Death of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!'

He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air:

'Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the company

of a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose

papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing

his boat (as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition

of other little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively

recognises my position, even by this light and in this place. It's well

done! By Heaven! I win, however the game goes.'

Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down.

'What's the hour now?' he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him, rather

difficult of association with merriment.

'A little half-hour after mid-day.'

'Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come!

Shall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for I

shall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made

ready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor.'

Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and

showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected.

'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan

gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss--Canton de

Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born

in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.'

His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the folds

of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion

and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he

was rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to

undergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a

person as John Baptist Cavalletto.

'Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I have

lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere. I

have been treated and respected as a gentleman universally. If you try

to prejudice me by making out that I have lived by my wits--how do

your lawyers live--your politicians--your intriguers--your men of the