and I didn't call
upon you in Paris because the capital was forbidden to me."

"Why did you leave Beaugency when you were under surveillance?"

"In the first place, Jeanne, since the gratings are between us, you
must fancy I have embraced you, squeezed you in my arms, as a man ought
to do who has not seen his sister for an eternity. Now let us talk. A
prisoner at Melun, who is called the Gros-Boiteux, told me that there
was at Beaugency an old convict of his acquaintance, who employed the
freed prisoners in a factory of white lead. Those who work at it in a
month or two catch the lead-colic. One in three of those attacked die.
It is true that others die also; but they take their time about it and
get on, sometimes as long as a year or even eighteen months. Then the
trade is better paid than most others, and there are fellows who hold
out at it for two or three years. But they are elders--patriarchs--of
the white-leaders. They die, it is true, but that is all."

"And why did you choose a trade so dangerous that they die at it?"

"What could I do? When I went to Melun for that well-known job of the
forged coin I was a thimble-rigger. As in gaol there was no scope for my
line of business, and I am not stronger than a good stout flea, they put
me to making children's toys. There was a tradesman in Paris who found
it very advantageous to have his wooden trumpets and swords made by the
prisoners. Why, I must have made half the wooden swords used by the
children of Paris; and I was great in the trumpet line. Rattles,
too,--why, with two of my manufacture I could have set on edge the teeth
of a whole battalion! Well, when my time was up I was a first-rate maker
of penny trumpets, and my only resource was making child's playthings.
Now, supposing that a whole town, young and old, were inclined to play
tur-tu-tu-tu on my trumpets, I should still have had a good deal of
trouble to earn a livelihood; and then I could not have induced a whole
population to continue playing the trumpet from morning to night."

"You are still such a jester!"

"Better joke than cry. Well, then, seeing that at forty leagues from
Paris my trade of juggler was no more useful to me than my trumpets, I
requested the surveillance at Beaugency, intending to become a
white-leader. It is a trade that gives you indigestion enough to send
you mad; but until one bursts one lives, and that is always something,
and it was better than turning thief. I am neithe