f the general attention. It made
Gringoire shudder as though it had been an electric shock. The prologue
stopped short, and all heads turned tumultuously towards the beggar,
who, far from being disconcerted by this, saw, in this incident, a good
opportunity for reaping his harvest, and who began to whine in a doleful
way, half closing his eyes the while,--"Charity, please!"

"Well--upon my soul," resumed Joannes, "it's Clopin Trouillefou! Hola
he, my friend, did your sore bother you on the leg, that you have
transferred it to your arm?" So saying, with the dexterity of a monkey,
he flung a bit of silver into the gray felt hat which the beggar held
in his ailing arm. The mendicant received both the alms and the sarcasm
without wincing, and continued, in lamentable tones,--

"Charity, please!"

This episode considerably distracted the attention of the audience; and
a goodly number of spectators, among them Robin Poussepain, and all the
clerks at their head, gayly applauded this eccentric duet, which the
scholar, with his shrill voice, and the mendicant had just improvised in
the middle of the prologue.

Gringoire was highly displeased. On recovering from his first
stupefaction, he bestirred himself to shout, to the four personages on
the stage, "Go on! What the devil!--go on!"--without even deigning to
cast a glance of disdain upon the two interrupters.

At that moment, he felt some one pluck at the hem of his surtout;
he turned round, and not without ill-humor, and found considerable
difficulty in smiling; but he was obliged to do so, nevertheless. It
was the pretty arm of Gisquette la Gencienne, which, passed through the
railing, was soliciting his attention in this manner.

"Monsieur," said the young girl, "are they going to continue?"

"Of course," replied Gringoire, a good deal shocked by the question.

"In that case, messire," she resumed, "would you have the courtesy to
explain to me--"

"What they are about to say?" interrupted Gringoire. "Well, listen."

"No," said Gisquette, "but what they have said so far."

Gringoire started, like a man whose wound has been probed to the quick.

"A plague on the stupid and dull-witted little girl!" he muttered,
between his teeth.

From that moment forth, Gisquette was nothing to him.

In the meantime, the actors had obeyed his injunction, and the public,
seeing that they were beginning to speak again, began once more to
listen, not without having lost many beau