Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/531

Charles Dickens] to be rapidly hastening their extinction. I will only add that the Mojanes are the largest tribe, and once numbered ten thousand souls.

ODD WAYS OF GETTING A LIVING.

years since, three eminent statisticians, who had made the social condition of Paris their study, came to the astounding conclusion that every day upwards of five per cent of the population neither knew how to procure a meal, nor where they would sleep at night, and yet nearly the whole of them contrived to fare, after a fashion, before the day was over. "How," it may be asked, "did they manage?" With many this was their own secret, and too frequently a terrible one, divulged only before the police tribunals. Of those who got their living honestly, though none the less precariously, there were many thousands, the mere names of whose pursuits were known to few besides themselves. Even when you heard them you were scarcely the wiser, and had to ask for an explanation, which the chances were you would not comprehend, until more precise details were furnished. Supposing you were told, for instance, that such a person was a "guardian angel," that another "let out meat on hire," or "made soup bubbles," that others were contractors for "harlequins," dealers in secondhand bread, "painters of turkeys' feet," and "retailers of lighted fuel," you would be puzzled to know the objects of these various callings, and what possible need there could be for their exercise; and yet comfortable livings have been, and are even now being, made from them all.

Let us take the case of the first retailer of live fuel in Paris. The market women, who remain exposed all day long to the inclemency of the weather, invariably provide themselves with foot-warmers lined with sheet iron and little earthenware pots called "beggars," which they place on their knees to keep their fingers warm. These ladies were accustomed to have their "chaufferettes" and their "gueux" made up early every morning, and frequently twice a day by some neighbouring charbonnier, to whom they paid three sous for the two fires, and whose good pleasure they were generally obliged to wait, as he, knowing his services to be indispensable, naturally enough indulged of a morning in a late snooze.

A "bricoleur" engaged at the markets on any odd jobs that chanced to fall in his way, had noticed, during the long nights he passed waiting for a job, the negligence of these charbonniers, and made up his mind to supplant them. He had an idea which, well directed, would infallibly realise for him that fortune which every Frenchman, who is more than ordinarily poor, is constantly dreaming of. "If," said he to himself, "I can only hit upon something better and cheaper, and deliver it to the consumers instead of obliging them to come to me while I am snoring in bed, I shall soon have the entire trade in my hands. The charbonniers fill the foot-warmers with charcoal dust, which is more or less dangerous. In place of this I must find something which is perfectly inoffensive, gives as much heat, and burns a longer time." He looked about him, he reflected, he made experiments, and at length decided that lighted tan was the very thing. It gave him one especial advantage over the charbonniers, for he could proclaim that every one who patronised him need no longer fear those distressing headaches, which the fumes of charcoal invariably engendered.

He sounded the market women, asked them what they would think of a man who came round early every morning and filled their "chaufferettes" on the spot without their having to disarrange themselves in any way, and who would be at their service at all hours of the day and night.

"We should think him a good fellow," replied they, "who would do a service to us and to himself as well."

"Well, I am your man," said he. "I intend starting as a fire-seller next winter."

The mere idea of a man thinking of doing what had never been done before, aroused a universal outcry as a matter of course. Before any one had the smallest idea of how he proposed to proceed, it was decided that the thing was impossible. Our daring innovator had to put up with all sorts of jests and ironical remarks, which he bore with an equanimity arising from the self-confidence of genius. He installed himself on the banks of the Bièvre, in the suburbs of Paris, almost, indeed, in the fields, in an abandoned building composed of four bare walls and a roof. There, with some flat paving-stones picked up in the neighbourhood, and which served him for a furnace, and a large sheet-iron extinguisher, bought second-hand, he commenced operations. He had selected the centre of the Paris tanyards, in order that he might have his raw material under his hand. A truck served to transport it, and a large wooden box, lined with tin, contained the manufactured article. In this modest way our innovator set to work.

During the summer he passed his days in his improvised laboratory, almost naked, and undergoing much the same heat as a loaf in a baker's oven. Most other men would have died, but our "bricoleur" was tenacious, brave, and enterprising; he wanted, too, to have the laugh on his side, and what was of more consequence, the profit as well. Despite his day's labour, he still went to the markets to do all manner of odd jobs during the night. Early in the autumn he constructed a cart covered inside and out with strong sheet-iron, and as soon as the cold weather began to set in, on a cool and starlight night he made his appearance at the markets, dragging behind him something resembling a large black box