A low-browed animal with rasped hair was shouting,
"Messieurs and ladies, come and see--come and see the theatre of the
galleys! The only one in the world! This is the place to view the real
instruments of torture used on the prisoners---chains four yards long
and balls of thirty-five pounds. All authentic, gentlemen and ladies.
You will see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon who killed his
father, Madame Cottin who ate her baby. Come in, come in, gentlemen
and ladies! Fifteen centimes! 'Tis given away! You enter and go out
when you like. Come in! It is educational: you see vice and crime
depicted on the faces of the criminals!"
[Illustration: THE JESTER AT THE FEAST.]
In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the analogy
betwen _een spinnekop_ and _eene meisie_, the perspiration streaming
over his face; and my ancient minnesinger's blood stirred within me at
the report of the pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais
of the people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming.
The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play each other
down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary processions that
quite overflowed the city. The house of "confections" yielded me no
broadcloth of a cut or dimension suitable to my figure. But my two
friends chose me a hat, a light pale-tot (my second purchase in that
sort on this eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a
rosebud, and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre,
I concealed the decay of my toilet.
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