Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/236

 words were accompanied by a loud horse-laugh, in which the rest of the company joined.

"What is the matter there?" cried some who were not sufficiently nigh the scene of action to understand the cause of the burst of voices which assailed their ears.

"Hats off."

"Do you observe that man in the wig?"

"Are those the murderers?"

"There he is, there he is!"

"Who? who?"

"Do not crowd so dreadfully."

"Take your hands off, you blackguard."

"Knock him down! down with him!"

"How wrong of females to risk their lives by coming to a scene like this."

"Here, climb up on my shoulder."

"Down there, you are not made of glass."

"Are they all mad to make such a noise?"

"Oh, it is nobody after all, only a guardsman!"

"Are any of the spies amongst them?"

"Spies? Yes, four I have been told."

By the time these different exclamations were ended, the flux and reflux of the multitude had borne me away to the midst of a fresh group, where a dozen gossips were busily conversing of me in the following manner:—

. (This speaker appeared, by his silvery locks, of venerable age.) "Yes, sir, he was condemned to the galleys for a hundred and one years—commuted from sentence of death."

. "A hundred and one years! bless me, why that is more than an age!"

. "The lord be good unto me, what is that you favoured me by saying? A hundred and one years! indeed, as the other gentleman observed, that is rather more than a day!"

. "No, no; something more than at day indeed; upon my credit, a tolerably long lease of it."

. "And so he had committed murder, had he?"