reed convict, worker at the wood
that floats at St. Paul's Quay; frozen in the winter, scorched in the
summer, from twelve to fifteen hours a day in the water; half man, half
frog; that's my description," said Rodolph's companion, making him a
military salute with his left hand. "Well, now, and you, my master, this
is your first appearance in the Cite. I don't mean anything to offend;
but you entered head foremost against my skull, and beating the drum on
my carcass. By all that's ugly, what a rattling you made, especially
with these blows with which you doubled me up! I never can forget
them--thick as buttons--what a torrent! But you have some trade besides
'polishing off' the Chourineur?"

"I am a fan-painter, and my name is Rodolph."

"A fan-painter! Ah! that's the reason, then, that your hands are so
white," added the Chourineur. "If all your fellow workmen are like you,
there must be a tidy lot of you. But, as you are a workman, what brings
you to a _tapis-franc_ in the Cite, where there are only prigs,
cracksmen or freed convicts like myself, and who only come here because
we cannot go elsewhere? This is no place for you. Honest mechanics have
their coffee-shops, and don't talk slang."

"I come here because I like good company."

"Gammon!" said the Chourineur, shaking his head with an air of doubt. "I
found you in the passage of Bras Rouge. Well, man, never mind. You say
you don't know him?"

"What do you mean with all your nonsense about your Bras Rouge? Let him
go to the--"

"Stay, master of mine. You, perhaps, distrust me; but you are wrong, and
if you like I will tell you my history; but that is on condition that
you teach me how to give those precious thumps which settled my business
so quickly. What say you?"

"I agree, Chourineur; tell me your story, and Goualeuse will also tell
hers."

"Very well," replied the Chourineur; "it is not weather to turn a mangy
cur out-of-doors, and it will be an amusement. Do you agree, Goualeuse?"

"Oh, certainly; but my story is a very short one," said Fleur-de-Marie.

"And you will have to tell us your history, comrade Rodolph," added the
Chourineur.

"Well, then, I'll begin."

"Fan-painter!" said Goualeuse, "what a very pretty trade!"

"And how much can you earn if you stick close to work?" inquired the
Chourineur.

"I work by the piece," responded Rodolph; "my good days are worth three
francs, sometimes four, in summer, when the days are long."

"And y