Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 2.djvu/71

 sister devoured all with their eyes, and I was not in a bad humour for commencing the attack and carrying on the war.

Whilst I was cutting up the fowl, Dufailli tasted the claret. "Delicious, delicious!" he repeated, smacking his lips, and then began to drink heartily; and scarcely had we began to eat, than an unconquerable drowsiness nailed him to his chair, when he snored away most comfortably until the dessert came in. He then woke, crying out, "The Devil—it blows hard—where am I? Does it freeze? I feel a sort of an all-overish, I-don't-know-howishness." "Oh," cried Pauline, who took me for a sapper of the guards, "his supper has not well digested."—"The papa's legs and back are asleep," said Therèse, in her turn, and opening a sort of sweetmeat box, in which was some snuff, "Take a pinch, my venerable; that will clear your eyes." Dufailli took a pinch; and if I mention this circumstance, trifling in itself, it is because I have before neglected to say, that Pauline's sister was more than thirty, and from the simple fact that she took snuff like a lawyer or commissary's clerk, we may easily imagine that she was not in the freshness and bloom of youth and beauty.

However that may be, Dufailli made much of her; "I like the little thing," he said occasionally; "she is a good girl."—"Oh, that is nothing new," replied Therèse, "whenever a vessel anchors in our roads, I have gone through the scrutiny of all the crew; and I defy any sailor to say 'black's the white of my eye.' When one knows how to behave as one should, one—"—"The wench says right," interrupted Dufailli. "I like her because she is open, and so I will give her a good turn."—"Ah, ah, ah, cried Pauline, laughing, and then addressing me, "And you, will you give me a similar turn?"

Thus ran on our conversation, when we heard, coming from the road leading to the harbour, a body of men, whose boots made a great noise as they