Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442: Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 — John Shaqi
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442: Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442: Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852
Various
Periodicals
Between eleven and twelve o'clock, Le Bossu was again brought into M.
Huguet's presence. The commissary who arrested his father was also
there. 'You have made a surprising guess, if it _be_ a guess,' said
the procureur. 'The missing property has been found under a
hearth-stone of the centre house.' Le Bossu raised his hands, and
uttered a cry of delight. 'One moment,' continued M. Huguet. 'How do
we know this is not a trick concocted by you and your father to
mislead justice?'
'I have thought of that,' replied Le Bossu calmly. 'Let it be given
out that I am under restraint, in compliance with Nadaud's request;
then have some scaffolding placed to-morrow against the houses, as if
preparatory to their being pulled down, and you will see the result,
if a quiet watch is kept during the night.' The procureur and
commissary exchanged glances, and Le Bossu was removed from the room.
It was verging upon three o'clock in the morning, when the watchers
heard some one very quietly remove a portion of the back-boarding of
the centre house. Presently, a closely-muffled figure, with a
dark-lantern and a bag in his hand, crept through the opening, and
made direct for the hearth-stone; lifted it, turned on his light
slowly, gathered up the treasure, crammed it into his bag, and
murmured with an exulting chuckle as he reclosed the lantern and stood
upright: 'Safe--safe, at last!' At the instant, the light of half a
dozen lanterns flashed upon the miserable wretch, revealing the stern
faces of as many gendarmes. 'Quite safe, M. Pierre Nadaud!' echoed
their leader. 'Of that you may be assured.' He was unheard: the
detected culprit had fainted.
There is little to add. Nadaud perished by the guillotine, and
Delessert was, after a time, liberated. Whether or not he thought his
ill-gotten property had brought a curse with it, I cannot say; but, at
all events, he abandoned it to the notary's heirs, and set off with Le
Bossu for Paris, where, I believe, the sign of 'Delessert et Fils,
Ferblantiers,' still flourishes over the front of a respectably
furnished shop.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE SHEARS.
The vestiarian profession has always been ill-treated by the world.
Men have owed much, and in more senses than one, to their tailors, and
have been accustomed to pay their debt in sneers and railleries--often
in nothing else. The stage character of the tailor is stereotyped from
generation to generation; his goose is a perennial pun; and his
habitual melancholy is derived to this day from the flatulent diet on
which he _will_ persist in living--cabbage. He is effeminate,
cowardly, dishonest--a mere fraction of a man both in soul and body.
He is represented by the thinnest fellow in the company; his starved
person and frightened look are the unfailing signals for a laugh; and
he is never spoken to but in a gibe at his trade:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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