Early he handed over the bag of broadsides--the revolutionary songs and ballads (some, it must be confessed, abominably coarse)--to my care, that so he himself might assume a lofty indifference to the meaner processes of his business. This delighted me. It was like a new rattling game to me to hawk my commodities amongst the crowd; to jest and laugh with my fellows once more under cover of the droll I represented. Shortly, I think, I became as popular as Quatremains himself; and over this, though he loved me as a valuable auxiliary, he began to look a little sober by-and-by, as if he dreaded I should joke the weightier part of his commerce out of all respect. _His_ popularity was chiefly with the village wenches. They would gather about him at the fountains, and pay their sous open-eyed to be expounded; or singly they would withdraw him into nooks or private places if the case was serious. “Citizen seër,” says Margot, “I dreamed I fell and was wounded.” “That is good, little minette. Thou wilt pay me five sous for a fond lover.” “Citizen seër, I dreamed I was eating of a great egg.” “And thou shalt shortly beget a male child that shall bring thee honour.” “How now, old Jackalent!” There rises a shrill cackle of laughter. “_Fi donc_, Margot! _On te le rendra de bonne heure!_” To submit the commerce of love to the test of a little dream-manual he carried about with him, that was Quatremains’ system. This key (it was in manuscript) interpreted on a couple of hundred, or more, words, from _Abel_ to _Wounds_; but affairs of the heart predominated through the whole alphabet of nonsense. He would coach himself continually from it in secret; but indeed a small wit and a trifle of invention were all that was needed. Now and again I would rally him on this petty taxing of credulity. “How now!” he would answer. “Art thou not yet convinced?” “By what, thou most surprising Quatremains-Quatrepattes?” “For example, did I not foretell that Mère Grignon, whose husband was guillotined, would be brought to bed of a child with the mark of the _lunette_ on its throat; and were not my words verified the same night?” “But who knows that some one may not have bribed the nurse to score the neck of the new-born with whipcord?” “_Tête-bleu!_ Should I hold good my reputation and pay this nurse, think’st thou, out of five sous?”