Or
it may be Harree and Pompom who are running to and fro shaking hands with
everybody in the wildest state of excitement, and I hear a voice behind
me:
"_Liberte, monsieur? Liberte?_"
and I say, No. Precigne, feeling weirdly depressed, and Surplice is
standing to my left, contemplating the departure of the incorrigibles
with interested disappointment--Surplice of whom no man takes any notice
when that man leaves, be it for Hell or Paradise....
And once a week the _maitre de chambre_ throws soap on the mattresses,
and I hear a voice
"_monsieur, voulez pas?_"
and Surplice is asking that we give him our soap to wash with.
Sometimes, when he has made _quelques sous_ by washing for others, he
stalks quietly to the Butcher's chair (everyone else who wants a shave
having been served) and receives with shut eyes and a patient expression
the blade of The Butcher's dullest razor--for The Butcher is not a man to
waste a good razor on Surplice; he, The Butcher, as we call him, the
successor of The Frog (who one day somehow managed to disappear like his
predecessor The Barber), being a thug and a burglar fond of telling us
pleasantly about German towns and prisons, prisons where men are not
allowed to smoke, clean prisons where there is a daily medical
inspection, where anyone who thinks he has a grievance of any sort has
the right of immediate and direct appeal; he, The Butcher, being perhaps
happiest when he can spend an evening showing us little parlour tricks
fit for children of four and three years old; quite at his best when he
remarks:
"Sickness doesn't exist in France,"
meaning that one is either well or dead; or
"If they (the French) get an inventor they put him in prison.
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