Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/23

Rh Then lo! I heard a husky voice, a swift and silky tread: “You got so blind, last night, mon vieux, I collared all your cash— Three hundred francs…. There! Nom de Dieu,” said Julot the apache.

And that was how I came to know Julot and Gigolette, And we would talk and drink a bock, and smoke a cigarette. And I would meditate upon the artistry of crime, And he would tell of cracking cribs and cops and doing time; Or else when he was flush of funds he’d carelessly explain He’d biffed some bloated bourgeois on the border of the Seine. So gentle and polite he was, just like a man of peace, And not a desperado and the terror of the police.

Now one day in a bistro that’s behind the Place Vendôme I came on Julot the apache, and Gigolette his môme. And as they looked so very grave, says I to them, says I, “Come on and have a little glass, it’s good to rinse the eye. You both look mighty serious; you’ve something on the heart.”