Gavroche expressed his admiration for this skill.

"What a dentist!" he cried.

Montparna.s.se added a few details as to Babet's flight, and ended with:--

"Oh! That's not all."

Gavroche, as he listened, had seized a cane that Montparna.s.se held in his hand, and mechanically pulled at the upper part, and the blade of a dagger made its appearance.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, pushing the dagger back in haste, "you have brought along your gendarme disguised as a bourgeois."

Montparna.s.se winked.

"The deuce!" resumed Gavroche, "so you're going to have a bout with the bobbies?"

"You can't tell," replied Montparna.s.se with an indifferent air. "It's always a good thing to have a pin about one."

Gavroche persisted:--

"What are you up to to-night?"

Again Montparna.s.se took a grave tone, and said, mouthing every syllable: "Things."

And abruptly changing the conversation:--

"By the way!"

"What?"

"Something happened t'other day. Fancy. I meet a bourgeois. He makes me a present of a sermon and his purse. I put it in my pocket. A minute later, I feel in my pocket. There's nothing there."

"Except the sermon," said Gavroche.

"But you," went on Montparna.s.se, "where are you bound for now?"

Gavroche pointed to his two proteges, and said:--

"I'm going to put these infants to bed."

"Whereabouts is the bed?"

"At my house."

"Where's your house?"

"At my house."

"So you have a lodging?"

"Yes, I have."

"And where is your lodging?"

"In the elephant," said Gavroche.

Montparna.s.se, though not naturally inclined to astonishment, could not restrain an exclamation.

"In the elephant!"

"Well, yes, in the elephant!" retorted Gavroche. "Kekcaa?"

This is another word of the language which no one writes, and which every one speaks.

Kekcaa signifies: Quest que c'est que cela a? [What's the matter with that?]

The urchin's profound remark recalled Montparna.s.se to calmness and good sense. He appeared to return to better sentiments with regard to Gavroche's lodging.

"Of course," said he, "yes, the elephant. Is it comfortable there?"

"Very," said Gavroche. "It's really bully there. There ain't any draughts, as there are under the bridges."

"How do you get in?"

"Oh, I get in."

"So there is a hole?" demanded Montparna.s.se.

"Parbleu! I should say so. But you mustn't tell. It's between the fore legs. The bobbies haven't seen it."

"And you climb up? Yes, I understand."

"A turn of the hand, cric, crac, and it's all over, no one there."

After a pause, Gavroche added:--

"I shall have a ladder for these children."

Montparna.s.se burst out laughing:--

"Where the devil did you pick up those young 'uns?"

Gavroche replied with great simplicity:--

"They are some brats that a wig-maker made me a present of."

Meanwhile, Montparna.s.se had fallen to thinking:--

"You recognized me very readily," he muttered.