The Mysteries of Paris, vol 2 | Page 2

in her casket are real diamonds. I will put the Owl up to this!" added Red Arm's son.
"If you do not leave this room instantly, I will call the police," said Morel.
The children, frightened at this scene, began to cry, while the old idiot started upright in her bed.
"If any one has a right to call the police, we're the men. Do you hear, Mister Sideways?" said Bourdin.
"You'll see the police lend a hand to take you, if you don't go quietly," added Malicorne; "we have not the magistrate with us, it is true; but if you wish to enjoy his society, you shall have a taste of one, just out of his bed, quite hot and heavy. Bourdin will go and fetch him."
"To prison! Me?" cried the astounded Morel.
"Yes, to Clichy."
"To Clichy!" repeated the artisan, with a wild look.
"Is he hard of hearing?" asked Malicorne.
"Well, then, to the debtor's prison, if you like that better," explained Bourdin.
"You--you--are--can it be?--the lawyer! Oh, my God!"
The artisan, pale as death, fell back on his stool, unable to utter another word.
"We are the officers who are to take you, if we can; do you understand now, old fellow?"
"Morel, it is for the bill in the hands of Louise's master! We are all lost!" said Madeleine, with a sorrowful voice.
"This is the warrant," said Malicorne, taking from his dirty pocket-book a stamped writ.
After having mumbled over in the usual way a part of this document, in a voice hardly intelligible, he pronounced distinctly the last words, unfortunately too well understood by the artisan.--
"As final judgment, the court condemns Jerome Morel to pay to Pierre Petit-Jean, merchant,[Footnote: The crafty notary incompetent to proceed in his own name, had got from the unfortunate Morel a blank acceptance, and had introduced a third party's name.] by all his goods, and even with his body, the sum of thirteen hundred francs, with lawful interest, dated from the day of the protest; and he is besides condemned to pay all other and extra costs. Given and judged at Paris, the 30th of September," etc., etc.
"And Louise, then? Louise!" cried Morel, almost distracted, without appearing to have heard what had just been read. "Where is she? She must have left the lawyer, since he sends me to prison. Louise! my child! what has become of her?"
"Who is this Louise?" said Bourdin.
"Let him alone," said Malicorne. "Don't you see he's coming the artful?" Then, approaching Morel, he added: "Come, to the right-about-face, march; I want to breathe the air, I am poisoned here!"
"Morel, do not go!" said Madeleine, wildly. "Kill them, the thieves! Oh, you are a coward! You will let them take you, and abandon us to our fate."
"Act as though you were at home, madame," said Bourdin, sarcastically; "but if your husband lifts his hand against me, I will give him something to remember it by," continued he, twisting his loaded stick round and round.
Occupied solely with thoughts of Louise, Morel heard nothing of what was said. Suddenly, an expression of bitter joy lighting up his face, he cried out, "Louise has quitted the lawyer's house. I shall go to prison with a light heart!" But then, glancing round him, he exclaimed, "But my wife, and her mother, and my poor children--who will support them? They will not trust me with stones to cut in prison; for it will be supposed that my own misconduct has sent me there. Does this lawyer desire the death of all of us?"
"Once for all, let us be off!" said Bourdin; "I am sick of all this. Come, dress yourself and march."
"My good gentleman, forgive what I have just said to you," cried Madeleine, still in bed; "you will not have the cruelty to take away Morel; what do you think will become of me, with my five children, and my idiot mother? There she is, huddled up on her mattress. She is foolish, my good gentlemen; she is quite out of her mind."
"The old woman that is shorn?"
"Sure enough she is shaved," said Malicorne; "I thought she had on a white scull-cap."
"My dear children, throw yourselves at the feet of these two gentlemen," said Madeleine, hoping, by a last effort, to soften the bailiffs, "entreat them not to take away your poor father--our only hope." But in spite of the order of their mother, the children, frightened and crying, dared not leave their beds.
At the unusual noise, and the sight of the two bailiffs, whom she did not know, the idiot began to utter deafening howls, crouching herself against the wall. Morel appeared careless to all that was passing around him; the blow was so frightful, so unexpected, the consequences of this arrest appeared so terrible, that he could scarcely believe in its reality. Already weakened by privations of every description, his