helped
him to mount upon it.

"Hih, hih! Monsieur; you are very good," puffed the little man, quite
out of breath, without looking up at his kind assistant. "Give me a
little bean soup, if you please, Monsieur. I am very poor, and very
hungry to-day. Must spend one picayune for one cheap dinner, or else
must have one cheap coffin made for me at the expense of the
corporation! Hih, hih!"

Guly smiled at this odd speech, and rang the little bell for the waiter.
As he did so, the dwarf suddenly wheeled his head round on his slender
neck, and tipped his one eye curiously up at the face beside him.

"'Tis you, Monsieur. Be gor, I thought it was one waiter. Hih, hih! I am
very hungry, Monsieur."

"Here is the waiter. What will you have, my friend?"

"One cheap dinner--bean soup--I am so very poor. Ah, Monsieur, 'tis hard
to be so poor."

Guly ordered some meat to be added to the old man's frugal repast, and
then returned to his own table to finish his dinner. The dwarf seemed to
dispatch his meal with a fine relish, though interrupting himself in the
process of eating, every few minutes, by twisting his crooked body
half-way round, and turning his one eye up at Guly, as if to make sure
he was there.

The singular appearance of the dwarf, and the ready and gentle
assistance rendered him by Guly, had attracted considerable attention,
from those who yet lingered over their viands; and when Guly took his
seat, a young exquisite, who occupied a table just at his left, and who
had been obliged to use two of his fingers to part his glossy moustache,
while he passed in his food with his other hand, now turned round, and
regarded him with an impertinent stare.

"I say, Mistar, is that gentleman with crutches yondaw, a brothaw of
yours?"

"By the laws of humanity he is, sir."

"Awr! I'm glad to find there's no closaw tie, so I can express my
opinion of him. He is a scamp, sah!"

"Indeed! why so?"

"Because he is, sah!"

"You know him?"

"Perfectly well!"

"And he is a scamp?"

"If he's no relation of yours, yes, sah."

"Does he tipple?"

"Not zat I know, sah!"

"Steal?"

"No, sah!"

"Meddle with other people's affairs?"

"Yes, sah! zat is, every day he puts his disgwusting digits on my
spotless cassimeres, and asks for money!"

"You of course grant his request?"

"Not I, sah! I feel always like touching the twip of me pwatent leather
gaitaw just beneath the lowermost extreme of his spinal column, and