ws are felted with grime or broken into black
stars. A few steps farther I think I saw the childish shadow of little
Antoinette, whose bad eyes they don't seem to be curing; but not being
certain enough to go and find her I turn into my court, as I do every
evening.

Every evening I find Monsieur Crillon at the door of his shop at the
end of the court, where all day long he is fiercely bent upon trivial
jobs, and he rises before me like a post. At sight of me the kindly
giant nods his big, shaven face, and the square cap on top, his huge
nose and vast ears. He taps the leather apron that is hard as a plank.
He sweeps me along to the side of the street, sets my back against the
porch and says to me, in a low voice, but with heated conviction, "That
Petrarque chap, he's really a bad lot."

He takes off his cap, and while the crescendo nodding of his bristly
head seems to brush the night, he adds: "I've mended him his purse.
It had become percolated. I've put him a patch on that cost me thirty
centimes, and I've resewn the edge with braid, and all the lot.
They're expensive, them jobs. Well, when I open my mouth to talk about
that matter of his sewing-machine that I'm interested in and that he
can't use himself, he becomes congealed."

He recounts to me the mad claims of Trompson in the matter of his new
soles, and the conduct of Monsieur Becret, who, though old enough to
know better, had taken advantage of his good faith by paying for the
repair of his spout with a knife "that would cut anything it sees." He
goes on to detail for my benefit all the important matters in his life.
Then he says, "I'm not rich, I'm not, but I'm consentious. If I'm a
botcher, it's 'cos my father and my grandfather were botchers before
me. There's some that's for making a big stir in the world, there are.
I don't hold with that idea. What I does, I does."

Suddenly a sonorous tramp persists and repeats itself in the roadway,
and a shape of uncertain equilibrium emerges and advances towards us by
fits and starts; a shape that clings to itself and is impelled by a
force stronger than itself. It is Brisbille, the blacksmith, drunk, as
usual.

Espying us, Brisbille utters exclamations. When he has reached us he
hesitates, and then, smitten by a sudden idea, he comes to a
standstill, his boots clanking on the stones, as if he were a cart. He
measures the height of the curb with his eye, but clenches his fists,
swallows what he wan