Little Dorrit | Page 5

I expected
yesterday, the President will look for the pleasure of your society at an
hour after mid-day, to-day.'
'To try me, eh?' said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in
mouth.
'You have said it. To try you.'
'There is no news for me?' asked John Baptist, who had begun,
contentedly, to munch his bread.

The jailer shrugged his shoulders.
'Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?'
'What do I know!' cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern
quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his fingers, as
if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. 'My friend, how is it
possible for me to tell how long you are to lie here? What do I know,
John Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life! There are prisoners here
sometimes, who are not in such a devil of a hurry to be tried.' He
seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; but
Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with quite
so quick an appetite as before.
'Adieu, my birds!' said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty child
in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss.
'Adieu, my birds!' the pretty child repeated.
Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he
walked away with her, singing her the song of the child's game:
'Who passes by this road so late? Compagnon de la Majolaine! Who
passes by this road so late? Always gay!'
that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, and in
good time and tune, though a little hoarsely:
'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Compagnon de la Majolaine!
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Always gay!'
which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the
prison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear the song
out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight. Then the
child's head disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head disappeared, but
the little voice prolonged the strain until the door clashed.
Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before

the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for
imprisonment, and seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his
foot that he had better resume his own darker place. The little man sat
down again upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was
thoroughly accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks of
coarse bread before himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began
contentedly to work his way through them as if to clear them off were a
sort of game.
Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at the
veal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make his mouth
water; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of the president
and tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as clean as he could, and
to wipe them on his vine leaves. Then, as he paused in his drink to
contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his moustache went up, and his nose
came down.
'How do you find the bread?'
'A little dry, but I have my old sauce here,' returned John Baptist,
holding up his knife. 'How sauce?'
'I can cut my bread so--like a melon. Or so--like an omelette. Or
so--like a fried fish. Or so--like Lyons sausage,' said John Baptist,
demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and soberly
chewing what he had in his mouth.
'Here!' cried Monsieur Rigaud. 'You may drink. You may finish this.'
It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor
Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned it
upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips.
'Put the bottle by with the rest,' said Rigaud.
The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted
match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of
little squares of paper which had been brought in with it.

'Here! You may have one.'
'A thousand thanks, my master!' John Baptist said in his own language,
and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen.
Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock into
a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the bench.
Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in each
hand, and smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some uncomfortable
attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood
of that part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan.
They were so drawn in that