s struggling with two men,
that Quasimodo had a companion; and the morose and haughty face of
the archdeacon passed confusedly through his memory. "That would be
strange!" he said to himself. And on that fact and that basis he began
to construct a fantastic edifice of hypothesis, that card-castle of
philosophers; then, suddenly returning once more to reality, "Come! I'm
freezing!" he ejaculated.

The place was, in fact, becoming less and less tenable. Each molecule
of the gutter bore away a molecule of heat radiating from Gringoire's
loins, and the equilibrium between the temperature of his body and the
temperature of the brook, began to be established in rough fashion.

Quite a different annoyance suddenly assailed him. A group of children,
those little bare-footed savages who have always roamed the pavements
of Paris under the eternal name of _gamins_, and who, when we were also
children ourselves, threw stones at all of us in the afternoon, when we
came out of school, because our trousers were not torn--a swarm of these
young scamps rushed towards the square where Gringoire lay, with shouts
and laughter which seemed to pay but little heed to the sleep of the
neighbors. They were dragging after them some sort of hideous sack;
and the noise of their wooden shoes alone would have roused the dead.
Gringoire who was not quite dead yet, half raised himself.

"Ohe, Hennequin Dandeche! Ohe, Jehan Pincebourde!" they shouted in
deafening tones, "old Eustache Moubon, the merchant at the corner, has
just died. We've got his straw pallet, we're going to have a bonfire out
of it. It's the turn of the Flemish to-day!"

And behold, they flung the pallet directly upon Gringoire, beside whom
they had arrived, without espying him. At the same time, one of them
took a handful of straw and set off to light it at the wick of the good
Virgin.

"S'death!" growled Gringoire, "am I going to be too warm now?"

It was a critical moment. He was caught between fire and water; he made
a superhuman effort, the effort of a counterfeiter of money who is on
the point of being boiled, and who seeks to escape. He rose to his feet,
flung aside the straw pallet upon the street urchins, and fled.

"Holy Virgin!" shrieked the children; "'tis the merchant's ghost!"

And they fled in their turn.

The straw mattress remained master of the field. Belleforet, Father
Le Juge, and Corrozet affirm that it was picked up on the morrow, with
great pomp, by t